Solitary Confinement
by Jerrath92
Summary: If there was one thing worse than surviving hell on earth, it was surviving with other people. Merle sincerely wishes that he could leave the other survivors behind and resort to solitary survival, but being alone is the worst possible thing he could do just now. And his choice of survivors would not have been them. Daryl 3rd char. Gore, lang, drug use, & violence. Please review!
1. Chapter 1: Road Trip

**Just got to thinking that I've been suffering from a severe case of Walking Dead withdrawal since the end of Season 2. Today I got some GREAT NEWS—that is to say, I saw an announcement concerning the elder Dixon brother. Merle. He's back y'all! Or at least, he's supposed to be and if he's not I might write a strongly worded letter to the editor. But in the meantime, I wanted to start up another Merle fic, one that is completely unrelated to the trilogy I did. I would like to express my apologies that my characters are repetitive, but I will be honest to say that I only really liked Merle, Dale, Daryl, Jim, and Andrea, so that is why they are always front and center in my stories. But, let's face it—they rock! I try to mix things up and make them a little different each time while maintaining their personalities. Poor Dale and Jim are no longer with us, but I swear if anything and I mean **_**anything**_** happens to Daryl and Merle, there'll be Hell on Wheels to pay, oh, wait, wrong story. I don't know where this story is going yet, but let's just take it one chapter at a time. Anyway, for the fourth time Merle Dixon makes an appearance starting now…**

**Now…**

If he was completely honest with himself (which was a rare thing) he would not have chosen the old man or the older blonde bitch to be part of his survival group, but he had had no say in the matter thanks to Daryl who had answered the call of nature at the worst possible moment. Forty-eight seconds. That was all it took for one walker to break into camp and then another and another until the survivors were overwhelmed. The dead sent them scattering and Merle was the only one who had the sense to go for the weapons in place of food, which was most likely why they were still alive. While everyone else had grabbed tin cans and water bottles, Merle had raided the weapons supply and dumped what he could into the back of the pickup truck that Daryl was tossing equipment into. To Merle's intense displeasure, old man Horvath and the blonde woman had climbed into the front seat next to Daryl and Merle was forced to kick his motorcycle into action to keep up with his little brother who shot off down the trail going well over sixty. They had seen no one else from the camp since and it had been six long days of no one but Merle's three companions to talk to. Several times he contemplated clamping his teeth down on his Browning Hi-Power and just shooting the hell out of his brains to spare him the agony of trying to keep a conversation going with the old man who just wouldn't shut up, but in the end he always decided that he loved his miserable excuse for a life too much to end it so soon. He would start out the morning by grumbling and accusing Daryl of having the shittiest bladder ever, take his portion of the food in the truck, yell at Daryl again, and then steer far clear of his three companions for as long as he possibly could.

When Dale confronted him about his contribution to the group, Merle had to exercise every ounce of self-control he possessed to not bitch slap him right then and there. He went on to make the very valid argument that they could defend themselves and hunt with the weapons he had scrounged while the food and toolbox Dale had saved would not be at all useful in helping to gather more food or in protecting them from walkers. Merle would take a gun over a can of refried beans any day. He could go shoot something with his gun and eat it after, but he wasn't going to take out anything with a can of refried beans unless he ate the damn things himself and let out a round of flatulence. The idea was about as appealing as chewing off his own arm to eat and he would only resort to _that_ if he was the last living thing on the planet.

If one good thing could be said for Dale, it was that he knew when to back off when Merle was in a high temper, but Andrea didn't seem to know the meaning of the phrase. If anything she came in closer to the danger zone and Merle had to remind himself that she was, in fact, a woman, and that he couldn't hit her, though several times he dearly wanted to. Just the smug look on her symmetrical, flawless face made Merle's insides twist into nauseating knots. She was nothing but a stuck-up bitch who thought herself above someone like him who didn't even have a high school diploma, but what the hell did that matter? She was the college graduate and he was the high school drop delinquent, yet both of them had survived the end of the world thus far, though if she kept up her high and mighty shit that might change very soon. Merle would have preferred for her to just take a swing at him instead of standing before him with her hands on her hips, shaking her head at him as if he were something unintelligent and nasty like a slug.

Daryl didn't attempt to intervene anymore since it only made Merle angrier, but this was only a bonus. Merle didn't trust himself to not pop his little brother in the mouth every time he tried to break up the arguments. He, like Dale and Andrea avoided Merle as much as Merle tried to steer clear of them, though at night this was rather difficult. They threw a tarp over the back of the pickup if it rained and huddled beneath it, but this was a rare occasion. Mostly Dale and Andrea slept in the back while Daryl and Merle slept upright in the front seat with someone always on lookout. Thankfully there had been no sign of walkers at night, but there wasn't a sign of anything else either. Since joining up with the group, Merle had grown accustomed to seeing around two dozen faces every morning and no matter how little he wanted to admit it, he harbored a deep feeling of security in knowing that there were still people in the God-forsaken wasteland that used to be America. Now, however, as they drove on aimlessly, Merle saw no one and nothing that looked alive.

Hell, if this was how the world was now, Merle wasn't too sure that he wanted to continue living day to day.

He had been kept awake with the nagging worry of the remaining gas in their tanks and where or when they would be able to fill up or if they would just have to break into another one. That, however, would require walking, which was about the stupidest thing they could do up to this point. The rain had started up around midnight by Dale's watch and they had set out rain catchers since their water supply was running low.

Merle rested his forehead against the window, watching the hypnotizing raindrops roll down the other side of the dusty glass, never making the same pattern twice…

_He shoved someone out of his way, didn't know who, didn't give a damn. A collection of bats, pistols, and a few shotguns sat in a crumpled cardboard box near the Winnebago's front tires and he snatched up the lot, lugging it over to the red pickup and tossing everything into the back. He heard someone scream and it sounded like a woman, but judging by the tone, he concluded that she was already beyond help. Daryl passed him, throwing open the pickup door and jamming the keys into the ignition. His crossbow was slung over his shoulder and in no position to fire as a walker emerged from the other side of the door. The walker stuck out its arms drunkenly and scrabbled at Daryl's pant leg. Kicking out, Daryl tried to shake the walker off, but the damn thing held fast. Merle drew his Jungle Master hunting knife and jabbed it upward into the walker's skull base, snapping its neck sideways as he did._

_ "Get that ass movin', son," he told Daryl as he ran for his bike. A walker had already beaten him to it and he punched the ugly sucker in the face with his knife before starting up his bike and kicking off towards the trail. Daryl was already speeding along, accompanied by the old man and that blonde woman. The road was narrow, but Merle still pulled up beside the truck, teetering on the edge of the cliff as he called out to Daryl over the roar of both engines._

_ "The hell're they doin' in there?"_

_ "Same thing we're doin', dumbass," Daryl retorted, eyes on the road._

_ "I ain't babysittin' two whiny-ass nit-pickers!"_

_ "You're gonna run outta road, that's what you're gonna do," Daryl warned, pointing ahead._

_ Merle cursed, veering and braking simultaneously, but the road was slick with gravel and the bike tipped, dragging him along. His pant leg split as he skidded and though he tried to grope for something to hold onto and break his fall, his motorcycle took him with it right over the side of the cliff. He fell, windmilling his arms and screaming._

He sat up in alarm, smacking his head on the low ceiling. Grasping his hands over the tender area, he saw stars and swore. "_Ow!_ Son've a _bitch_!" Breathing heavily through his nose he jammed his fist against his door in anger. When the pain had somewhat subsided, he dropped one arm to see Daryl leaning far back from him against his own door, hands tucked into his armpits. He had a look of subtle concern on his face.

"Y'just gonna sit there gawkin' at me like an idiot?" Merle demanded.

"Well, y'seem t'be just fine." Daryl replied casually. "I was watchin' ya twitch and moan for 'bout five minutes b'fore y'woke up. Had a nightmare, didja?"

"No shit, Sherlock," Merle grumbled, massaging his head. "Couldda woke me up instead've spectatin'."

"Naw, y'wouldda hit me if I did. I tried that once b'fore and I had a black eye for two weeks."

"Argh, screw you."

Merle pinched the bridge of his nose, clasping his eyes shut. He could still hear the rain pattering outside and opened his door to stick his head out into it. The cool wetness was rejuvenating after the sweat-inducing nightmare. Swinging his legs out of the truck, he bent over, rested his elbows on his knees, and clasped his hands at his forehead.

"Was it walkers?" asked Daryl from behind him.

Merle almost smiled to himself. Funnily enough, it _wasn't_ walkers. Here he was in the middle of hell and he had nightmares about falling off of a cliff. No, he had relived the night that the walkers broke upon them detail for detail right up until he fell off his bike. That part had never happened. In actuality he had pulled the motorcycle sideways just in time and continued to follow Daryl down the road.

"Y'gonna talk 'bout it or not?"

"Go back t'bed, kid."

"I will if you stay awake this time. You're on watch duty, remember?"

Merle looked over his shoulder and shot Daryl the middle finger just before his little brother closed his eyes. Pulling the door shut none too quietly, Merle put one leg up on the dashboard and crossed his arms.

_Shit._

**So…I appreciate any comments. Also, I only just found this, but the following link will be sure to bring a smile to all Merle fans.**

** /walking-dead-season-3-merle/**


	2. Chapter 2: An Empty Tank

Though the alternative to listening to Dale or Andrea complain about one thing or another was to introduce them to his fist, Merle knew that he would have to put up with them. Both of them knew how to handle a gun and he didn't want some stupid argument coming down to using weapons. He would force a grin and bear it, but he wouldn't like it one bit. He was willing to start fresh with his unwanted traveling companions until the pickup's tank rang out empty the following morning. Despite a night punctured with a nightmare and a grueling headache from where he had hit his head on the ceiling, Merle was devoted to going one whole day without an argument, but those plans went to shit as soon as the pickup came to a sluggish stop in the middle of the road. Merle pulled his bike over beside the broken down vehicle and rested his arm on the edge of the trunk, drumming his fingers against the side.

"Toldja, didn't I?" he said to Daryl. "I done _told_ ya that you was gonna run her dry if y'kept her goin' all day, but didja listen? No, 'course y'didn't 'cuz your head was so far up your ass-,"

"All right, I get it!" Daryl snapped, kicking his door open and fishing around in the back for a container to collect gas. Dale and Andrea pried up the hood as Daryl scooped up his crossbow. "I'll go look for some damn gas, happy?"

The thought of having to remain behind with Dale and Andrea for God-kne- how-long made Merle as unhappy as it was possible to be and he didn't trouble to keep that opinion to himself. In a highly audible tone, he vocalized just what he thought about _that_. "A shit plan and I'm not likin' it at all. I'll go look for gas m'self s'long as I don't have t'sit here and keep tabs on those two." He jabbed his thumb at the front of the pickup where Dale was fiddling with something or another under the hood.

"_Those two_ can hear you," called Andrea coldly.

"That's great news, now butt out and lemme do the talkin', huh?" Merle retorted.

"You wanna go lookin' for gas," said Daryl and it wasn't a question.

Merle leapt at the opportunity. "That's _exactly_ what I'm sayin'. Fair warnin'; if y'leave me here with Grandpa and Marsha Brady, our happy little family's gonna be one member short when y'get back."

"I'll stay," said Daryl quickly, handing the container over to Merle who felt a slight pang of annoyance that Daryl had never stuck up for _him_ that fast—not that Merle ever needed him to. If anything, Merle was the one watching Daryl's ass and dragging him out of fights he had no business butting into. It would be too soon the day that Merle forgot when Daryl had come home with a broken nose after getting into an alley fight with one of the neighborhood bullies. Merle slapped a cold piece of meat over his brother's nose, went over to the younger boy's house, and promptly kicked his ass. Afterwards the little bastard had left Daryl alone, which gave Merle one less thing to worry about whilst he served out his time in juvee. By the time he got out Daryl had managed to land himself in six more fights, four of which he won, but he had suffered through a set of broken ribs, two broken teeth, and a busted kneecap in the process. Secretly Merle was extremely proud that his little brother wasn't just a whiny little bitch like their old man feared. Their dad had dumped all the responsibility for Daryl on Merle's shoulders when he never came back from that drug deal and Merle tried his hardest to mold Daryl into some sort of man that their dad would approve of.

When the news first caught video of the walkers terrorizing the city and the sirens started to blare to no end, Merle had gathered up his most prized possessions, the least of which was Daryl and driven as far out of town as the jammed roads allowed. He and his little brother were emotionless hard-asses who would choose survival over anything else and for a while Merle thought he had successfully managed to create something of a clone of himself, but apparently he had missed a crucial step in the molding process because Daryl insisted on protecting these sorry people. Be it on his own head, then. If Daryl wanted to concern himself with watching out for people who he owed nothing to, then that was fine with Merle. He had told Daryl from the moment the first scream rang out on the television that if push came to shove that he, Merle, would do whatever it took to survive and that he would let Daryl tag along until Daryl became invaluable. Daryl took that news well by calling Merle a very unique swearword that he must have picked up on the street somewhere. Merle credited himself with having an extensive knowledge of slang vocabulary but there were still times when Daryl surprised him with what he knew or did, like now.

He was quick to speak out in Dale and Andrea's defense and Merle couldn't remember the last time he had been so kind to his own brother.

"You stay here and I mean _right here_," said Merle warningly. "I don't wanna get back and find out that y'all have gone off and built some tree house in the woods while I'm walkin' around lookin' for ya. Y'remember my rule, bro; if I gotta call for ya twice, I'm leavin' ya behind. And I will, don't think I won't. I'll fill up my own tank and book it outta here faster'n you can take a piss. I ain't waitin' around for nothin', y'hear me? I'll give ya a shout when I'm comin' up the road and your ass'd better be right where I leave it."

"It's not like I got somewhere better to be," Daryl pointed out grumpily. "Get lost, then." He climbed up onto the top of the pickup with one leg dangling carelessly over as he watched Dale do whatever the hell it was the old man was doing.

"I'll be back by sundown, but don't count on me comin' with gas. With our luck, the nearest gas supply is two days out."

"Always the optimist, aren't you Merle?" said Dale with his head buried deep under the hood.

"Don't you tell me 'bout no brighter side to this situation or I'll give your face a bright new bruise, old timer."

"Are you still here?" said Andrea impatiently.

"I'll go whenever the hell I feel like goin', so don't get bitchy with me, woman."

"Just _go_ already," said Daryl wearily.

Merle took a bat from the weapon supply, his Winchester and a canteen from the front seat, and the container from Daryl. Laden with his supplies, he began his trek up the road, swinging his bat aimlessly to ready his arm for the action that was likely to come. After a week of controlling his anger, Merle knew that he seriously needed a stress reliever and in today's world there was no better stress reliever than a wandering walker. The thought of beating a walker's brains out and splattering the pavement with blood cheered him considerably and he quickened his pace, eager to let out some much-needed steam.


	3. Chapter 3: Side Roads

**Aaaargh! Can I get a FINALLY for the confirmed return of Merle Dixon? Official photo link below. Enjoy and anticipate!**

** /first-official-photo-of-merle-from-the-walking-dead-season-3/**

He was in luck, which was a rare thing in Merle's case. He _never_ got lucky. Ever. He was at least a mile down the road when he saw a walker bumbling around on the shoulder trying to grab a squirrel from a low-hanging branch and Merle strode up to it, lowering his shotgun and the gas container and taking the bat in both hands. With a sharp, piercing whistle, he waited for the walker to hear him and turn, which it did with its mouth hanging open stupidly and bloodshot pupils blinking blearily at him. A low, inhuman growl emitted from its throat and then raising the bat back to rest on his shoulder, Merle swung hard, cracking the damn thing's jaw as he delivered an uppercut. He came back around and took out a fair chunk of the walker's skull, splattering dark purplish-red blood all over the pavement. A tiny bit of the walker's brain leaked out and instantly flies began to settle in around it.

Nodding to himself in a self-satisfied sort of way Merle wiped the tip of the bat on the weeds beside the road and glanced up at the squirrel that was still perched on the branch and was now chewing an acorn with what Merle supposed was an intrigued look.

_Lucky little bastard_.

Merle picked up his shotgun and continued on his way, feeling somewhat better than before, but yearning for another walker, as he wasn't finished letting out all of his anger just yet. Sometimes the best way to relieve stress was to just beat the living—or this case, dead—hell out of something, which was one of the few upsides to the apocalypse; he could basically hit anyone and anything he wanted and not get in trouble for it. That was how he had ended up behind bars for the second time; he hit his commanding officer and popped out a few of the idiot's teeth. He was sure that Daryl still hadn't forgiven him for that one because the day Merle's sentence started happened to fall on the same day as Daryl's high school graduation. Go figure. As if Merle planned it out that way…

But Daryl would never know what it was like to survive with humans whose only desire was to rape. Daryl would not so easily have accused him of being a stubborn, selfish jackass if he had even the slightest idea of what Merle had been through. Daryl was still a child, an innocent child in that area and most likely would remain so since walkers couldn't rape.

He hadn't gone twenty more paces when he saw an additional two walkers ahead of him. Knife in hand, he swiped out at the closer one, ripping a long fleshy cut through its mouth as he proceeded onto the second one and stabbed it repeatedly in the left eye socket. Behind him he heard the first walker moaning as it stumbled towards him, blood and saliva dripping steadily from its deformed mouth.

"Oh, shuddap," said Merle as he drove his knife upward through the walker's chin until he could feel the corpse stop moving.

Even he had to admit that he was probably one of the best, if not _the_ best walker killer in the business because he enjoyed it and even sought it out whereas people like Shane Walsh only did it out of necessity. What was the point in it if you didn't at least get a savage pleasure out of knocking the stuffing out of walking crash dummies? Merle believed that deep down everyone had always had the urge to take a bat or a knife or something to an actual human body with as much force as they could muster, but then again, that could be the crack talking. The world may have gone to hell, but Merle still had trouble sleeping at times or just needed a bit of a reprieve and he would continue to use his cocaine until he ran completely dry and then—he didn't want to think about what happened when he ran out. He had been dependent on that shit for too long to remember despite Daryl's constant attempts to hide it from him. He had warned his little brother that if he ever tried to take something that wasn't his again, he could kiss his chances of having children goodbye. It hadn't taken long for Merle to get hooked on the damn stuff and more than once he wished that he could kick the habit, but that was looking to be nearly impossible now. Plus, he wasn't too sure that he wanted to stop after all. He wanted to remember as little of his time in prison as possible, as little of his abusive dad and basically everything related to his childhood.

_So suck on that, boy_.

Daryl complained about Merle, but as long as he was the only thing his brother had to bitch and moan about, that was fine with Merle. At least Daryl didn't have to sniff away his worries. Thank God for small favors.

Small favors. Not the big ones because after two hours of mostly uphill climbing, Merle had not seen anything that even remotely resembled a gas station or another car and was feeling rather pissed off at the Big Man. He could hotwire a car (something he had picked up while serving out his sentence) but he didn't come across any of those either. He found it hard to believe that the road could be so barren but reminded himself that this road was more so dedicated to scenery than to actually get anywhere. All the major streets were crammed with abandoned vehicles that were deserted after their owners realized that they weren't going to get anywhere in an unmoving and never-ending line of traffic. The main streets had been a death trap, which was why Merle had purposefully taken a side road in an attempt to steer clear of the horde of the undead and the stupid. Now those same saving graces had turned around and stabbed Merle in the back since they yielded nothing of any use.

Measuring how many hours of daylight he had left with his fingers, he contemplated whether or not he should press on for a bit more or start heading back. The thought briefly flashed across his mind to just keep going and not return to the other three and, had Daryl been with him, he would surely have continued walking, but as luck would have it, Daryl was back at the damn pickup as was Merle's beloved bike. It wasn't an appealing thought to consider that he might be stuck in the middle of the road with Dale and Andrea for a few more days until they found some gas and that notion alone made him decide to look a little longer.

His thinking was well paid off when he stumbled across a rest stop another three miles up the road, but the bad news was that apparently a lot of people had had the same idea to stop and fill up. The result was that the place was crawling with walkers—at least twenty—and there were abandoned cars blocking the way to the gas pump. Swearing under his breath, Merle kicked out at a nearby tree in frustration and in addition to his throbbing head, now had a stinging pain in his big toe. Hopping about on one foot, he came to the conclusion that the only way he was going to get gas (if there was any left at this point) was by luring the dumb bastards away from the pump and then hauling ass back to fill up before sprinting off down the road again.

He put two fingers to his lips and blew hard. The whistle sounded too loud even to him and as he strapped his shotgun tightly over his shoulder he thought too late about what a stupid idea this was. It worked like a very bad, nauseating charm; the walkers turned collectively in his direction and began to give chase, or their rendition of a chase which was a drunken stagger. Some bumped into each other or got stuck trying to go around a car and Merle briefly thought that if the situation hadn't been so serious that the sight might actually be comical. Preparing himself for what was to come, he set the gas container down and started shuffling to his left towards the woods where he knew he could lose them and then double back. The hard part was going to be making sure that they all followed him far enough away to buy himself some time. He kept up a stream of swearwords and insults as a way of making noise though privately thinking that his tactics were sure to bring every walker for five miles down on him. He began to walk backward, glancing over his shoulder every few feet to make sure that he didn't trip or run into anything. The walkers followed like obedient hounds trailing their master who had the bone except in this instance, _he_ was the bone. After nearly ten minutes he could no longer see the rest stop between the numerous tree trunks and he decided that now was as good of a time as any to book it. He would run forward for a spell and then cut sharply to the right before rounding the herd at a reasonable distance and hope that they wouldn't hear him crashing away through the underbrush.

He turned around and broke into a run, though not quite at full steam just yet. He might need to save his energy for later and he didn't even have that much energy to begin with after living off of canned corn and chipmunks for the past week. He jumped over a small brook and rounded a thick elm tree before dashing back at a reckless speed, clutching his shotgun to keep it from bumping against his belt and making a clinking noise that would be sure to arouse the walkers. When he had cleared the herd he put on an extra boost of speed back to where he had set the gas container down. Scooping it up while still going fairly fast, he jumped and slid over the maze of cars barring his path until he came up right beside the gas pump. As he toggled the nozzle and prayed that gas was still inside, he peered back towards the woods to check for the walkers. Seeing that the pump accepted coins, he hurriedly began searching around for a male body, as it was more likely to have a wallet stuffed in its back pocket. He found one body sprawled over a blood-stained seat and wrinkled his nose at the grueling smell. As he rummaged around, feeling for the shape of a wallet in the body's pockets, he was aware of how very wrong this was on so many levels. Finally, he found what he was looking for and as he popped open the wallet, he dumped the contents of the pouch into his hand. With a small whoop he counted out six quarters and stuffed them haphazardly into the coin slot. A small clink and a suction sound later he was filling up the container as the gas began to flow out of the nozzle.

Muttering to himself about the trouble he had to go through just to fill up a tank he kept his eyes on the woods, tapping his foot anxiously. When the nozzle gave a retraction he let it fall and screwed the cap back onto the container, wishing he had considered that the weight of a full jug of gas might slow him down. As he began to pick his way back out from between the cars a sudden snarl caught his attention and twirling around wildly, he saw a female walker lean out of one of the open car doors and grab onto his pant leg. He panicked, misstepped, and went crashing to the ground, striking the back of his head on the pavement. White dots floated in midair over his eyes as he went for his knife and released the container. The walker threw itself at him, jaws open wide but Merle thrust out with his arm and slid the blade up the walker's nostril. The dead weight sagged onto him and he quickly kicked it off of him as he rolled over, snatched up the container and his bat, and continued running, though now with pain on both sides of his head.

_Damn gas better be worth it_, he thought darkly as he stuffed his knife back into its sheath. Thinking miserably of the long trek back to the pickup, he slowed down ever so slightly. The walkers weren't following him and so he had nothing to run from—yet.


	4. Chapter 4: Confrontations

Merle thoroughly expected Daryl and most likely Andrea to grumble about how long he had been gone when he finally returned to the pickup, but he was not at all prepared for Andrea's reaction to him trudging towards them with the bat dragging on the ground behind him and the gas container slipping from his sweaty fingers.

"You _asshole!_" she shouted, hands resting furiously on her hips as she stood between him and Dale who was still digging around under the pickup's hood.

Dropping the container, Merle crossed his arms and forced his exhausted face into a look of intense loathing. Daryl was nowhere to be seen and Merle made a mental note to himself to kick his little brother's ass later. "Now what in the hell did I do this time? I wasn't even here, woman, so what the hell you bitchin' about?"

"Dale _told_ you that we are all on rations until we find another supply. When I went to check and see what we had left, I counted two cans of black beans and a half canteen of water. You've been overeating your share and now we're in a shit hole because of it, you selfish, sneaky bastard!"

Merle took out his blood-stained knife and handed it out to Andrea. "You wanna go huntin' for the other half of the food? I bring in more'n I eat, woman, but I don't have to. If y'think you can provide for us all better'n me, y'go on ahead. I'm doin' the best I can, alright? I only had t'take care've one other person b'fore, so I'm still getting' used t'this."

"Daryl says you never took care of him," Dale protested.

Merle rounded on him with a death glare. "Shut that hole in y'face, son, b'fore I carve out your tongue and serve it up for dinner." He turned back to Andrea. "And I don't know who y'think you're callin' selfish with how y'ain't even pullin' your own weight. I ain't been stealin' no food; I'll eat squirrel bones b'fore I start pinchin' from canned goods, which I've been doin'. I dunno who's hoggin' the rations, but it ain't me, so shove it up your ass, bitch."

Dale emerged from the hood, pointing a wrench threateningly at Merle. "You watch your mouth when you talk to her. I put up with enough of your shit, but one thing I'm not going to tolerate is you speaking to a woman with such disrespect."

"How 'bout you mind your own damn business, old timer, huh?" said Merle with a small step forward

"Her safety is my business."

Merle came within a foot of Dale, knife still in hand and his bat still held in the other, though his grip tightened as he confronted the older man. "So what're y'gonna do 'bout it, old man?"

"You're bleeding," said Andrea abruptly.

His anger evaporated on the spot as he thought back to the rest stop. Had the female walker gotten a bite out of him without him realizing it? How could he not notice that he was bleeding? "Where?" he asked quickly, running his hands over the back of his legs as he dropped his weapons.

"On the back of your neck, base of your skull," said Andrea and suddenly he felt her fingers on his skin as she examined the wound. A prickle went down his neck and he stepped out of her reach. "Watchit, that's tender."

"What happened?" she asked with the tiniest inkling of concern on her face.

"Fell down," said Merle dismissively. "Guess I didn't notice." He put his hand to the base of his skull where he had struck it on the pavement when he had fallen over in alarm and when he put his palm to his eyes he saw blood staining his skin. "Damn it."

"I can fix that," said Dale, all traces of hostility gone from his wrinkled features. "Turn around so I can see it."

"Naw, I'm fine," said Merle. He brushed past Andrea and picked up the container, shoving it none too gently into Dale's arms. Bending over he picked up his weapons and winced as the injury on the back of his head stretched. "There's your damn gas. Went through hell t'get it, so it'd better last until we find another place t'fill up. When my asshole brother gets back, tell 'im I'll be by my bike."

With that he trumped off to where he had pulled his motorcycle over and dug around in the seat compartment for his black bag. He found one of ten small bottles of white powder and screwed the top off. In the process of dumping a small portion onto the flat surface of his seat he saw Andrea approaching and quickly capped the bottle again, now thoroughly irritated.

"What?" he asked rudely.

Upon closer inspection, he could see that Andrea had some medical supplies in her arms and he shook his head. "Uh-uh, piss off, woman. I already toldja I'm fine and I don't need no doctorin' done on me."

"I'm not going to waste my time trying to make you sit still you dumbass, but I just thought I'd offer to give you the supplies so you can do it yourself," said Andrea curtly. Her eyes flickered towards the bottle in Merle's hand and she raised an eyebrow. "Cocaine? Does that shit actually work?"

"Why, y'want some?"

"No thanks, my head isn't up my ass." She dropped the supplies into Merle's bag and walked off to join Dale in filling the tank.

Merle tipped the bottle over and a small mound of white powder fell onto his seat. He bent over, leaning his nose in close to the powder and took a powerful sniff. As he finished his business he saw Daryl who was walking leisurely towards him with his crossbow slung casually over his shoulder. Anger welling up again within him, Merle stood up, stuffing the bottle out of sight.

"And where in the hell've you been, huh?" he asked authoritatively. "I tolja t'stay here, right—here, didn't I? I warned ya that your ass'd better be here when I got back-,"

"Well, you were takin' your sweet time getting' back and I had t'take a shit," said Daryl earnestly. "I was gonna go lookin' f'you soon as I finished, but since you're here, it saves me the trip. Didja find some gas?"

Merle swung his arm out, catching Daryl across the ear. "Yeah, I did you little bastard and I'm pissed off right now so y'get your good-for-nothin' ass over there and help get the pickup ready 'cuz I wanna get the hell outta here."

Daryl rubbed the spot where Merle had hit him with a frown. "All right, damn, don't get all bitchy at me. Besides, you're _always_ pissed, so what's the difference 'tween when y'left and now? You're the one who didn't wanna stay b'hind, so y'got no one t'blame but y'self."

"Well, I wasn't expectin' t'run into a horde've walkers, was I? Nearly got bit and cut my skull open! Right now I wanna get off this damn road, pull into a safer place for the night and take a nap so you go to like a I tolja this time."

"A horde?" repeated Daryl. "How close?"

"Dunno, a few miles up the road, but they'll be easy t'drive past providin' that y'get the pickup runnin' now go do it, damn it!"

Daryl put up his hands defensively. "Y'know, I just answered nature's call and you're actin' like I was gone for hours. Cool it, all right?"

Merle cocked his Hi-Power. "Oh, I'm cool, son. I am so—fuckin'—cool right now."

The pickup gave a loud rumble and came to life as Andrea turned the keys in the ignition. Dale straightened up, dabbing at the sweat on his forehead collecting at the spot where his hat met his skin. He shook the container slightly to hear the remaining gas swish around inside as he screwed the lid back on.

"That ought to do it; come on, Daryl, you're driving."

Shooting Merle a filthy look, Daryl strode over to the pickup and just before he climbed into the driver's seat he held up his hand behind his back and flipped Merle the bird. If Merle had had anything disposable nearby at the moment, he would have chucked it at his brother. Instead he kicked up the rest stand, swung his leg over his bike, and started the engine. Daryl pulled the pickup off of the shoulder and Merle followed behind, muttering dark threats under his breath. He was uncomfortably aware of the stickiness on the back of his neck creeping down his spine.

Damn. How hard had he fallen to have so much blood spill out? He regretted only slightly not taking Andrea up on the offer to have her take care of his injury since it was going to be a pain in the ass to get to himself without a proper mirror.

Sometimes—only sometimes—doing everything himself really sucked.

**I know NOTHING about motorcycles or the process of doing drugs (had to research the small bit I put in) so sorry if I got anything wrong.**


	5. Chapter 5: The Worst Luck Ever

"Son've a bitch!"

Merle suspected that the walkers might migrate back to the rest stop, but he had hoped that it would only be some and not _all_ of them, damn it! It was hard enough to get through the car obstacles on foot, but in a bulky pickup and a motorcycle? Forget it. They already gave away their positions when they rounded the corner and came upon the pump so there was no use in pretending that they weren't there. The walkers—stupid as they were—took a moment to consider them before staggering as one giant mass in their direction.

"What d'we do now?" asked Daryl, leaning out of the cranked down window to consult with Merle.

"Either you go first and part the Red Sea of walkers with the pickup so that I can follow b'hind, or I'll weave through and you stay on my ass. That's all I got."

"That's some old bullshit that is," said Andrea. "There's too many-,"

"So what d'you suggest then, huh?" Merle demanded. "Y'want us t'go back? My ass we go back. Y'wanna go your own way, you get out and run. I'm goin' forward and so's Daryl, right?" Daryl raised his eyebrow ever so slightly which caused Merle to prompt more dangerously this time, "_Right_?"

"I'll go, but I won't like it."

"Well no one gives a shit 'bout whatchoo do and don't like," said Merle tersely, kicking off towards the walkers with his right hand resting on his Hi-Power. He shot towards the dead, bending low over his bike and tucking his arms in tight to make himself less of a target for snatching hands. He wove around the walkers that were too slow and stupid to turn around and try to grab him, but he kept his body tense nonetheless. Somewhere behind him he heard Daryl cursing and Andrea shouting then came the report of the Dale's Hawkeye. Merle couldn't help himself; he turned around in his seat to see a good seven walkers holding onto the tailgate and their unconscious strength was enough to hold the pickup in place. Dale was leaning as far back from the walkers as he could while in the front seat with Andrea on his left. Their window was cranked up, but the walkers, seeing highly-edible humans inside, were trying to break in.

"Shit! Double shit!" Merle swerved around, punching a walker with his pistol hand and then revved his engine. "Daryl, put the pedal to the floor, y'idiot!"

"Piece of shit truck died on us, Merle! We ain't goin' nowhere! Go on, get outta here!"

That meant that he had gone through hell to get that gas for nothing. Hell no, that was messed up. Merle stood up, feet and inner legs steadying his bike and he aimed for the walker at Daryl's window. He closed one eye and hit his target through the ear. As soon as the bullet exited the other side of the walker's skull Daryl threw open his door, crossbow and bat at the ready. He chose his bat in the close quarters and began smacking his way towards Merle.

Andrea kept looking into the back where what was left of their supplies remained. Merle knew what was going through her head and hollered, "We'll come back for the rest of it, get that ass movin', woman!" As she began to sidle over a walker suddenly snuck behind Daryl and grabbed her by the ankle. Screaming, she clung to Dale's arms as the walker tried to drag her out. Daryl spun about and struck it across the nose, sending it crashing backwards onto the pavement. He pulled Andrea out by her belt, leaving Dale to clamber out after her. Andrea took a crowbar from the back and Dale wielded his rifle as the three of them made their way back-to-back towards Merle.

The walkers seemed far more interested in the others than him, but Merle reminded himself that there were still strays behind him and on either side. He held his position while the three stragglers fought through the horde. Hacking up phlegm from his throat, Merle spat sideways and tucked his Hi-Power away. He pulled his bat from the holster across his back and went to town with a large grin on his face. Every skull he caved in was one argument he won against Andrea or Dale. He was thoroughly enjoying himself when he saw an old station wagon coming straight at him and at the wheel was the pencil-thin mechanic. In the seat next to him was one of the women from the camp. Craning his neck out of the window, the man shouted to them.

"C'mon, get in, get in!"

He pulled the car to a screeching halt right up beside Dale who wrenched the back door open and threw Andrea into it by the waist. The driver was already taking off when Daryl made a giant deer leap and looped his arm around the door frame. Daryl held himself up by his arms alone, feet trying desperately to walk on thin air. Dale reached out of the back seat and hooked his hand onto Daryl's belt loops, pulling him and the door towards him.

As the man drove like hell away from the rest stop, Merle stuck up both of his middle fingers, hoping the moron was looking at the rear-view mirror. "Oh, yeah, fine, don't mind me; it ain't like I mean shit or nothin'! Asshole!" He hurried back to his bike and started it up, very much aware of the walkers now coming for him since the pickup was devoid of humans. He supposed that he had thoroughly angered the walkers now as he pushed his bike forward with his foot, trying his best to not lose his bowels as they bore down on him. When he finally managed to get ahead of the ravaging corpses, he noticed that his bike was lagging and panicking ever so slightly, he began searching for the problem. The last—the _last_ thing he needed at this moment was to have the bike break down on him. Thankfully, it was not the bike, but rather what was attached to it. One walker had apparently made a grab and succeeded in getting its hand stuck between the seat and the tire. Merle swayed from side to side to try and shake the damned thing off, but had no success. Even if he shot the walker in the head, its dead weight would still slow him down. He pulled over, threw out the kick stand and hammered his bat down into the thing's head, instantly taking out its brain. Now twice-dead, the walker was nothing but an irritating corpse connected to the back of his motorcycle like some sick rendition of "Just Married" tin cans.

Kicking the body in frustration, he considered trying to saw through the walker's arm with his knife, but knew it would take too much time. Just then the station wagon pulled up beside him and the mechanic jumped out with an axe held out at the full length of his lanky arms. Merle stepped back as the axe came down through the motionless arm, severing it completely from the body.

"You okay?" asked the man.

"Yeah, I'm just fine," growled Merle. "And just where the hell'd you and her come from?" He pointed at the woman in the seat next to him who looked extremely pasty. For the life of him he couldn't remember either of their names.

"Just follow me. There's not much gas left in our tank, but we can get far enough away before it gives out."

_Tim, was that his name? No, Jack—no, wait, Joe—_

"Jim, get in the car and _drive_!" yelled Dale. "They're coming back!"

Tucking his bat away, Merle gave the ligament still connected to his bike a look of revulsion. It was going to be a gruesome chore in prying that thing out later. Pitying himself for some of the worst luck ever, Merle turned back to his bike, but no sooner had he begun to bring his leg back over the side that he heard Daryl shouting at him. He glanced up and then spun around. As he saw the walker reach for him, he lost his footing, having turned too quickly into his bike. He toppled over the side and struck his head once again in the exact same tender spot he had hit the last time he had fallen. He lay still, eyes rolling into the back of his head. His last thought was that of the awful stench that filled his nose.


	6. Chapter 6: Easily Spilt Secrets

"Fuck you, Jim," said Merle, opening one bleary to see a flashlight shining down on him. He raised a hand to block out the harsh light and waved the other to try and ward off the inconsiderate moron who was holding it on him. "My bike…who got…anybody?"

"Your bike is fine, though I can't say the same for the back of your head," said Dale's voice from somewhere to Merle's right. "You should have let me look at it when I offered."

"Screw you, old man," Merle groaned, trying to sit up, but a wave of nausea and pain washed over him and he felt a pair of hands push him back down. He soon realized that he was lying on grass with someone's jacket underneath his neck and that his head was wrapped in gauze. Now, where the hell did the old man get gauze?

"Damn it, Merle, lie _still_," said Andrea above him.

Just barely cracking one eye open, Merle was able to distinguish her blonde ponytail by the moonlight breaking through the treetops high above them and he saw that she was the one holding the flashlight.

"Get that damn thing outta my face, woman, are you tryin' t'blind m?"

"Dale needs the light-,"

"Get it outta my face!" he snarled.

"Turn it off before he bites your hand off," said Dale grudgingly. "And before you ask, Daryl and Jim got your bike out and got rid of the—uh—arm still connected to it. You conked out on impact when you hit the ground, but Jim and I were able to pull you into the wagon before the walkers got much closer, and let me tell you, it wasn't easy. You could do with losing a few pounds."

"I don't eat anything and I sweat off what I do eat, so shove it up your ass."

"I told you that he'd be ungrateful," said Andrea in a bossy sort of tone. "We should have left him there."

"Real smart idea that is, princess, and then who'd watch your perfect lil' ass? It's thanks t'me that you got outta there in the first place, so don't you go sayin' that y'shouldda left me-,"

"Merle, do us all a favor and shut up," said Dale, taping the rest of the gauze to Merle's head.

"Where's that mechanic? Dumb bastard nearly got me killed; I'll kill 'im."

"Jim saved you, dumbass," said Andrea defensively. "We all would have been goners if he hadn't shown up when he did and it's thanks to him that you have a working bike at all."

Merle touched a hand to his bandaged head and very slowly sat up, but this time both Andrea and Dale put their hands on his back to help him. He looped his arms around his knees to keep himself upright and took in his surroundings. Apparently the others had decided that a little off-turn in the woods was a safe place to bed down for the night. He saw Daryl sitting atop the car with his crossbow, surveying the road and the woods in turn.

"Who's the other one, the other lady in the car?" Merle asked, touching the back of his head gingerly.

Dale slapped his hand. "Don't touch it, damn it! And it's Lori," suddenly his voice became strained, "she and Jim couldn't get anyone else before walkers swarmed their car and they had to take off, but she's been hit with the-the flu or something because Jim says she's been throwing up for around twelve hours and she has a burning fever."

Lori. Merle tried to remember which camper Lori was and then it dawned on him that she was the one who had appealed to Shane Walsh to let Merle and Daryl join the campers when the former officer was hesitant. She had given Shane the big googely eyes and turned on some sort of charm that worked magic on him and that was how Merle's troubles started.

"Where's my bike?" he asked, looking around.

"It's in front of the headlights, why?" asked Andrea.

"Cuz I want my bag."

"You'll kill yourself if you snort right now, genius."

"Not for me, for her," said Merle coldly.

"She doesn't need it either!"

"Did I say cocaine, y'moron? I'm packin' more'n just powder; might have somethin' that can help her."

"I don't think that's such a good idea," said Dale warily.

Coming onto his knees and then very slowly standing up, Merle kept his eyes screwed up tight to avoid getting a blood rush to the head. "Why not?" he demanded.

"If she's vomiting all over the place, she won't be able to hold anything down," said Dale and there was a definite note of caution to his voice now.

Merle didn't understand what the old man's problem was. Did Dale fear that Merle was going to shoot Lori? Stupid, bearded idiot. What did he possibly have to be afraid of? Merle took one rather large step towards the front of the wagon, but his legs seemed to have forgotten how to work properly and his arms went into a mad windmilling motion as he struggled to keep his feet. Suddenly Andrea was behind him, hands pushing against the small of his back.

"Dumbass," she muttered again. "If you want your bag, I'll go get it, but Lori doesn't need anything that you have. If it'll keep you occupied, I can get you something to eat, or you can just shut up, curl up, and go back to sleep."

Just then Merle heard the sound of someone vomiting spectacularly into the bushes and gave Andrea a very foul look. "That don't sound like the flu t'me." Before she could stop him he started off at a very slow and deliberate march towards the passenger side of the car where he heard Jim speaking to Lori who was bent over on her knees puking all over the place. Merle felt his jaw dropped open as she looked up at him. Her face was more skeletal than human, her sickly yellow cheeks sunken in and her eye sockets hollow with an unhealthy purple tinge to them. Her skin was liked ash-colored wax stretched thinly over a surface that it couldn't cover and her eyes, once dazzling brown, were now plagued with a wispy white veil. In more or less a week she had become something similar to the corpses walking around at every turn, but she couldn't be one of them if she was looking at him with such sorrow on her face. She wasn't trying to eat him, for one thing, and another, she was whispering to herself. The walkers couldn't talk.

Standing quite still and looking like an idiot, Merle didn't hear Jim until the latter shouted his name.

"Merle!"

"What?"

"If you're just going to stand there, the least you can do is help her," said Jim, patting Lori's back in a comforting gesture.

"Help her what, puke? She don't need no help with that. Hell's wrong with her?"

"I don't know, and that's what I'm worried about," said Jim anxiously, holding Lori's hair back so that it wouldn't hang over into her own pile of vomit. Bawling her fists while hugging her waist, Lori opened her mouth to say something to Jim who leaned in closer to hear.

"What'd she say?" asked Merle, but at that moment Andrea and Dale arrived beside him.

"There's nothing you can do, Merle, come on," said Andrea and she actually took his hand to pull him away, but he wrenched his fingers free and rounded on Dale, poking his finger into the older man's chest.

"What's goin' on here, huh? Somethin' y'don't want me findin' out, is that it?"

"Leave it, bro," said Daryl from the top of the car. He had his crossbow notched. Merle looked from Jim and Lori to Dale and Andrea and finally to his brother. They all were hiding something from him, some secret that was apparently so terrible that it had all of them scared shitless in case he found out, but what could possibly be that bad? Had they, in fact splattered blood all over his bike? Were his drugs missing? Did they forget his weapons? Was he actually bitten?

"Damn it all t'hell, y'all, just tell me what the fuck is goin' on!"

Lori answered for them all, crumpling at last and writhing in anguish. Merle saw that her left side was soaked in blood from a very deep, very nasty, and very serious bite mark along her left shoulder blade.


	7. Chapter 7: The Waiting Game

_**Long time to wait; shame on me. The brain farting commenced.**_

His first instinct was to go for his Hi-Power, which he closed his hand around and cocked, but in the time it took him to draw, both Andrea and Dale had moved in front of Lori. There was an absolute no-bullshitting look on both of their faces that made Merle rethink his actions, though it wasn't enough to make him put his pistol away.

"This conversation isn't going anywhere until you get rid of the gun," said Dale firmly.

Merle wasn't fazed. "Y'all realize that she's a tickin' time bomb, right? For all y'know, she could turn in fifteen seconds and take a chunk outta your ankle and then your sorry ass is gonna wish you'd listened t'me. I'm doin' all've us a favor, now get outta the way."

"We're not going to discuss this," said Andrea. "We're not even talking about getting rid of her while she's still human. Afterwards is a different story, but while she's still here with us and fully aware of who she is, no one touches her and I mean _no one_."

Merle saw her hand stray towards her belt where she had tucked her Ladysmith and he scowled. "You're askin' for it. Turn 'round and look at her, y'stupid woman. How long y'figure she has until she starts chompin' on you? You're riskin' what y'got no right riskin' which is my _life_! I ain't sittin' 'round for her t'turn cannibal on us. Either y'let me put her down right now or I'm packin' up my shit and leavin'."

"Now there's a bright idea," said Dale sarcastically. "With that head injury you'd get maybe a mile before you passed out from dizziness."

"Then save me the trouble and get the hell outta the way, old man."

Daryl jumped down from atop the car and came between Merle, Dale, and Andrea. "They're just tryin' t'get you t'understand, bro; Lori's a friend. It's hard t'do that to a friend and I know _you_ don't know what that's like, but that don't mean they don't. Leave it alone and let 'em do what they want. Y'wanna go then go, no one's stoppin' you, but let the people who care 'bout Lori worry 'bout her."

_Morons_, thought Merle furiously. _They'll get 'emselves killed and see if I give a damn when they do. I warned 'em…_

"Merle, please," said Andrea and he was surprised to hear a bit of a choke in her words. Some of the determinedness had gone from her face and she actually looked on the verge of tears. It wasn't a touching, life-altering catharsis that made Merle tuck his Hi-Power away, but rather the fact that she had asked nicely which was a rare, almost unheard of thing from Andrea Whatever-the-Hell-Her-Last-Name-Was.

"All right," he said, taking a step back in respite. "Okay, fine."

He didn't look back at Lori, afraid that if he saw her face one more time, he might go back on his word and shoot her between the eyes. Instead he went around the car to where his motorcycle was parked and went digging in his pack for some pain killers for his splitting headache. He did his best to ignore the sounds of Lori still throwing up just a few feet away but once the pain killers kicked in he felt a renewed energy return to his body and taking his bat and rifle from the back of the station wagon, he went scouting ahead at a relatively slow pace so as not to further upset the tender bit of skin on the back of his head. He came across nothing unusual and no other living thing besides a chipmunk which scurried across the road without even looking his way. The little bastard could be thankful that Merle wasn't up to his usual standards otherwise he would have made a snack out of the critter.

It was his intention to stay gone for as long as he possibly could so that Lori could turn and be dealt with before he got back, but his boredom and a tiny inkling of worry won over all too soon. It wasn't that he thought the others incapable of putting a bullet in Lori's head; he knew Daryl could do it easier than the others, but the other three might hesitate and that was not the least bit comforting. What if they suddenly lost their heads and tried to prevent Daryl from shooting? His little brother might need back up.

Rolling his eyes for no one to see, Merle began walking back towards where the car was parked, exchanging his bat for his rifle in hand in case he had to take a long shot at Lori when he arrived. When he was only a few yards from their temporary campsite, he suddenly didn't want to get any closer. He didn't want to see Lori in walker form. He had seen countless walkers and put down his share of them, but he had never seen one that he had known when they were human. It would not be an easy image to forget if he suddenly saw Lori with gnashing teeth and veiled eyes when not an hour before she was still a living person.

"Merle, is that you?" called Andrea from the other side of the car.

He felt inclined to give a sarcastic reply like "no", but thought that the situation demanded better of him.

"Yeah, it's me," he answered, stopping in his tracks. Andrea appeared and came around to his side, taking deliberate slow steps as if she were trying to delay speaking to him for as long as possible. He waited until she was close enough to hear his whisper before asking, "Is she still here?"

"She's taken a bad turn in the past fifteen minutes," said Andrea with strain on her voice. "I'd give her another half hour, maybe forty-five minutes tops. Jim's with her now and Dale and Daryl are trying to decide who's going to…to…"

"Yeah, y'don't have t'finish that sentence," said Merle, hoping he sounded somewhat comforting.

Andrea crossed her arms and hugged herself, rocking slightly in place on her heels, which made Merle feel only more awkward as he wondered whether or not he should put his arm around her or just leave her alone. For a few minutes the two of them were silent, neither of them looking at each other if they could help it, but Andrea was the first to speak as a light breeze blew between them.

"It makes you think about the people you're with—watching someone succumb to the virus, I mean," she said, staring at a spot just past Merle's head so that she didn't have to look him in the eye. "Someone who you've grown accustomed to seeing every day could be gone the next, just like that. Like Lori—and my sister."

This was the first time Merle had heard Andrea mention Amy since they left the first campsite and it did not make him feel any more comfortable with talking to her.

"I don't know if she made it and I don't think I'll ever find out," Andrea continued, running a finger determinedly over her eyes, "but for those people who are left, I'm going to do my best to keep them around. _All_ of them." She met his eyes and an understanding passed between the two of them.

Merle felt strangely lighter, cleaner. She wanted him around; she gave a shit what happened to him because in her eyes, he was one of the last bits of humanity she had left to cling to. True, she probably felt closer to Dale and would be much more traumatized if something happened to him than if he, Merle, got himself bitten, but she had just admitted that her act of presenting herself as a selfish bitch was just that: an act.

Now Merle was certain that he should say something, but found his throat constricted. What could he say to that without sounding completely mushy? He didn't want to give her the wrong idea, but—

"Andrea, would you come sit with her for a minute, I have to empty the tank," called Jim, saving Merle the trouble of adding to the conversation.

Without looking at him, Andrea left Merle standing awkwardly in the middle of the road to go to Lori, and though Merle had an urge to follow her and say _something_, his reluctance to see Lori kept him in his place. Just when he was starting to wonder if he could qualify for the world's biggest ass for not saying anything to console Andrea, he heard her give a gasp and saw her silhouette quickly stand up, backing away from the station wagon.

"Dale," she called a terrified and trembling voice. "Dale…she's gone."

About four yards away Daryl and Dale hurried over to her, but stopped before they got close enough to shield her and by the very dim moonlight Merle could see that neither of them were armed. _Dumbasses!_

"She's getting up," said Andrea with a sort of transfixed horror fixed on her face.

"Daryl, go get your crossbow," said Dale urgently.

"No sudden movements," said Daryl through his teeth. "Andrea, y'got a gun, shoot her."

Andrea didn't respond, watching the spot where Lori was rising. Merle could just see the top of her head as she staggered forward. He heard the low, gravelly sound born from her throat that sounded as if she was suffering from a severe case of laryngitis. Then, her face caught the moonlight and her pale skin turned cloudy gray as she hobbled towards Andrea who was still frozen.

"Andrea, move!" said Dale, but she appeared to have not heard him.

Merle added his own voice to the protests that seemed to be bouncing off of her in her petrified state. "Move your ass, woman, what the hell d'you think you're doin'?"

The form of Lori gave a snarl and began a crippled sort of fast walk to get to Andrea and at the same time Merle swore, sprinting for Andrea while keeping his eyes down to avoid catching a glimpse of Lori in a good light. He rested his hand on Andrea's shoulder right as her fingers found her Ladysmith and she raised it, pointing it directly at Lori, or so Merle assumed since he was staring desperately at the back of Andrea's blonde hair.

"C'mon, shoot already," he said quietly, drumming his fingers on her shoulder which tensed up under his touch.

"_An-drea_," said Dale pressingly.

Fearing that she would stay frozen in a firing stance until Lori began gnawing off her hands, Merle used his other hand to pinch Andrea's cheek which seemed to jolt her from a daze and she realigned her sights, aiming with precision. She actually clapped her eyes shut as Lori closed in and then Andrea fired.


	8. Chapter 8: Grave Digging

Andrea's shoulders dropped and she went to her knees, hugging her stomach with her Ladysmith still in hand. Daryl rushed passed her to ensure that the walker wasn't going to get back up. Merle heard a dry sob escape her and knelt down at her side, tugging slightly on the pistol so that she wouldn't accidentally fire it off in her grief, but she wouldn't let go.

"Gimme the pistol," he said sharply, though he might as well have told the pistol to wriggle out of her hand for all the good it did. He knew he'd get hell from the old man for doing it, but he reached up and used the back of his hand to tap her somewhat mildly across the face. "Hey, leggo've the damn thing."

As if she were coming out of a stupor, Andrea relinquished her hold on the Ladysmith and Merle whisked it away before she could change her mind, standing upright with a sudden head rush as Dale took a knee on Andrea's other side and put his arm around her quaking shoulders. "Don't look at it," he advised, beginning to stand. Andrea came to her feet in a drunken wobble but suddenly keeled over, retching. Merle found himself staring and didn't look away until Daryl whistled at him and jerked his head pointedly at the corpse. Taking the hint, Merle tucked Andrea's pistol into the back of his jeans and went to help Daryl carry the body away from the campsite before Jim returned, which would be any moment because the gunshot was loud enough to bring every walker within a two mile radius down on them.

They would have to make quick work of Lori's grave, but that couldn't be helped. Neither of them had anything to dig with and they had no shovels back at the station wagon so once they had gone far enough into the woods they picked out a spot with relatively soft soil and used large pointed rocks to dig as big of a hole as they could before they had to leave. Merle performed most of the digging while Daryl gathered more rocks to place over Lori's body.

The silence was nearly unbearable as the two of them worked through the humidity that seemed to have returned in full and so Merle was quite thankful when it was Daryl who spoke first.

"I didn't think she was gonna do it."

"Me neither," said Merle, wiping sweat from between his knuckles to grasp his rock better.

"Jim's gonna be in shock when he gets back," said Daryl as he counted the rocks he had gathered. "Guess he blames himself for lettin' Lori get bit."

"That can't be anyone's fault; it just happens. There's walkers all over the place, how the hell're y'sposed t'keep track've 'em all? She was just unlucky, that's all. Not his fault, not ours, no longer our problem. Don't you get all sentimental on me, boy. I can't stand being the only one with his head screwed on straight. The other three are gonna be stuck with the blues for a while and if they wanna survive, I'm gonna have t'lead this group so you're gonna help me."

"Hell, Merle, someone just _died_," said Daryl, giving Merle a scathing look. "I know I said I wouldn't expect you t'understand, but Lori was a friend to all've 'em and in case y'don't remember, she's the reason we got t'stay in the camp in the first place."

"Yeah, and look where that's gotten us," retorted Merle unhelpfully.

Daryl kicked at a tree stump furiously. "Ass_hole_! Why can't y'get it? She was a fuckin' _person_! People loved her and one've those same people just put a fuckin' bullet in her _head_! How'd y'expect me t'react if I had t'blow your brains in, huh? They need t'grieve so you'd better let 'em otherwise they're gonna kick you out for good."

Merle sat back on his heels and rested his knuckles on his thighs. "If you had t'put a bullet in _my_ head I'd expect you t'do it quick and then get over it like a fuckin' man. People waste their time carin' 'bout others and that's why the world's gone t'hell. When the virus broke out people got bit and their families couldn't bare t'leave 'em behind and so more people got bit b'cause of it. Once someone's bit, y'need t'just give the hell up on 'em 'cuz there's no savin' 'em. If I wasn't standin' right there behind her, Andrea wouldn'ta been able t'shoot; she'd've gotten bit and then the old man would sob his eyes out over her and Jim'd bawl over him once _he_ got bit 'til it was just you'n me like old times, bro."

"Well, they didn't give up on Lori and no one else was bit, so they can grieve however the hell they want now. Y'keep tears bottled up and you'll pop."

"Naw, _you_ keep tears bottled up and _you_ might pop, but I won't," said Merle, returning to his digging with a sort of savage fervor.

"Y'did pop, y'dumbass. Y'hit your commandin' officer and landed y'self in the slammer 'cuz you weren't gonna take no more shit from anyone after Dad left. And after all the shit y'gave me, I've wanted t'slug you a hundred times but I didn't 'cuz you're the only family I got now. But those three—they might be all we've got left and damned if I let y'ruin that just like y'ruined everything else."

Merle found himself shaking in fury. So Daryl wanted to pop him one in the mouth, did he? Well, that was just fine. He stood up, tossing his rifle, his bat, his pistol, and Andrea's Ladysmith aside. Lastly he drew out his knife and pointed the tip at Daryl in a challenge.

"Give it y'best shot, bro," he said tauntingly, throwing the knife aside where it stuck blade first in the soft soil that was to be Lori's final resting place. Daryl set his crossbow down and then sprinted for Merle who spread out his stance to take the brunt of the attack. Daryl threw his arms around Merle's waist and despite Merle's preparations, both of them went down in the dirt. Merle tucked his knee in to his chest to put some distance between him and his brother and sent his fist into Daryl's cheek, feeling his calloused knuckles withstand the impact. This was his life; he had trained for battle since he was born and his body knew how to react to pain, absorb it, and return it.

The problem was that Daryl was born for the same thing. His little brother retaliated by digging his fist into Merle's ribs in a repetitive motion until Merle's body was cursing at him to do something about it. He used the side of his arm to clout Daryl across the face and then chopped his hand at Daryl's exposed windpipe. Daryl gagged, clutching his throat and fell onto his side which gave Merle time to give his ribs a break, compose himself, and go in for round two. He drove his elbow down into Daryl's chest and his little brother cried out, trying to protect himself while fighting Merle back. He seized one of the rocks from the large pile he had collected and swung it into the side of Merle's head. Merle saw at least thirty different stars dancing around on the ground as he keeled sideways and crashed into the soil, tasting grit and dead leaves. In the process of regaining his stance, he saw an ugly, deformed face staring ravenously at him from less than five feet away and he felt around for his knife. His fingers closed around the handle just as the walker lunged at him and he thrust upward through its chin, feeling the point of the blade touch the brain through the head. He withdrew the knife and plunged it into the walker's ear just to be safe and as he turned back to his ongoing fight, he suddenly let out a soprano squeal as Daryl's foot came up between his legs.

"Y'little son've a _bitch_," he moaned, holding his groin in agony.

"You can just go t'hell," spat Daryl, still wielding the rock he had hit Merle with. "Don't y'worry 'bout what I'm gonna do when y'get bit, Merle. I won't cry f'you, you can count on that."

"Fuck you," Merle snarled, wiping his knife on the grass.

They picked up Lori's body in silence, neither of them looking at each other and dropped it into the sad excuse for a grave Merle had dug before covering it with the rocks. Daryl set off first back to the camp, muttering indistinguishably under his breath but Merle stayed for a moment longer, picking up his weapons and casting a long, troublesome look at the mound of rocks by his feet.

_Damn people_, he thought. _People are what got us into this shit in the first place._


	9. Chapter 9: Words That Wound

Merle couldn't speak for Jim when it came to evaluating his reaction to Lori's death, but he was quite certain that the former mechanic was killing himself on the inside. Personally, Merle didn't see what he had to be upset about. How was Lori's death any different from her condition two minutes before Jim had to answer the call of nature? The idiot was beating himself up for the inevitable and it was starting to show by the fourth day after they evacuated their last campsite. Andrea had taken a vow of silence and Daryl wasn't speaking to Merle, so that meant that Dale was the lone voice on the long car rides down deserted roads. Luckily Daryl had found some gas to fill up the station wagon with because Merle was not about to carry some gloomy gus on the back of his motorcycle to go look for more. He didn't see the need to talk to any of the others any more than they felt the urge to talk to him, which was how it should have been all along, but even he had to admit that at nights when he saw the four of them gathered around a small fire, he felt a foreign sense of loneliness sweep over him.

He wasn't part of their little group; he didn't want to be and didn't give a diddly shit about joining it, but to be ignored and even shunned was something else. It wasn't that Dale or Andrea or Jim were angry with him, but they respected Daryl more than they tolerated Merle and no doubt Merle's little brother had told them everything Merle had said at Lori's gravesite. If Merle's brawl with Daryl had done anything, it made his companions extremely aware of their outward display of emotions, though with how Merle was passing the days and nights by, he almost wished for their former attitudes.

The dawn of the seventh day since Lori's death yielded a pale pink sky with nary a cloud to keep it company. Jim was up first fishing around in the back of the car for a can of fruit and Merle sat atop the car watching him, eyelids heavy after the final watch of the night. He yawned, corners of his mouth stretching chapped skin tight over his teeth. Apparently Jim didn't even notice him, for when Merle called out his rendition of a good morning Jim smacked his head on the top of the inside of the car and emerged rubbing at the tender spot, eyes watery.

"What?" he asked irritably, looking as if he would very much like to chuck his can of apricots at Merle's head.

"I've got a question for ya," said Merle, now quietly so that he didn't awake the other three. "Andrea, has she said anything since—that night?"

Jim's face was devoid of all expression as he stuck his screwdriver into the can and popped the lid. "Not much," he said distractedly and then as an afterthought asked Merle, "Dale got any rope in his bottomless toolbox?"

"Dunno, ask him," said Merle, sufficiently pissed off at Jim's lack of a helpful response.

"I'm asking you," said Jim pointedly.

"I said I dunno," Merle repeated.

Jim crossed his arms, can of fruit in one hand and wrench in the other and Merle had no doubt in his mind what exactly was on Jim's mind involving the wrench. "You're being deliberately unhelpful, you ass."

"And you're just naturally unhelpful," Merle snapped, surprised at how fast he had come up with a retort.

"Y'know, I don't blame Daryl in the least for calling you a worthless pile of horseshit," said Jim with so much venom in his voice that Merle half expected fangs and a long forked tongue to flick out of his mouth. Merle didn't realize how deeply the words had wounded him until he saw something that looked terribly like a grin of satisfaction slide over Jim's lips and at that moment Merle wanted nothing more than to seize the bastard's screwdriver and peel his eyes out with it. He would have done it too, if Dale hadn't chosen that exact moment to open his car door, stand up and stretch.

_Bastard_, thought Merle in hostility.

Dale asked him to go out and find some sort of unsuspecting animal to cook up for their dinner since they would be staying in the area until Daryl and Andrea found some more gas for the wagon. They all went their separate ways: Daryl and Andrea up the road, Dale under the hood of the wagon, Jim over to Dale's toolbox, and Merle off into the woods to hunt. He hardly paid any attention to what he was doing as he passed between the trees and tripped over portruding roots.

So, Daryl had confided in his surrogate family that Merle was horseshit, had he? Well, he could go to hell early and make reservations for the other three if that's how he felt. That backstabbing piece of fucking trash could just put a bullet in his own—

Daryl wasn't wrong. Merle's thoughts were overflowing with negativity which only earned him more betrayal from his little brother. It was because of the ideas and words running through his head that Daryl hated him in the first place. Did that mean, then, that Merle deserved to hear what he had from Jim, or was he really just as stuck up as everyone thought he was? Surely, he had some sort of redeeming quality deep down underneath the outer hard-ass shell he had become…?

_Naw, you're just as much've a pile of shit as everyone thinks y'are. _

And with that happy thought he shot a squirrle out of a tree with his pistol.

It was much later when the sun had already disappeared that he finally made his way back to the car, not looking forward to another night of sitting apart from the others and wondering just how much more Daryl was ratting out on him. He had two squirrels, a duck, and a baby chipmunk hanging from a line of wire across his shoulder which might fill up Andrea's stomach if she ate it all, but it wouldn't even give the rest of them cause to burp if they had to share. He strode into the petty campsite and tossed his catch on the hood, which was closed. He looked around but saw no one. Finding this rather odd, he cautiously walked back into the treeline now with a flashlight in hand where he saw a long and lanky silhouette standing on something that looked suspiciously like Merle's motorcycle. He clicked on the flashlight but nearly dropped it when the torch highlighted a horrifying sight.

Jim was balancing on Merle's seat and around his neck was a noose made out of the rope he had been asking about earlier. He had droplets of sweat clinging to every inch of visible skin and his face was completely flushed, quite opposite of what it should have been.

"What—the—_hell_—are—you—doing?" shouted Merle.

Turning his head slightly in Merle's direction, Jim only responded with a blink from those dark brown eyes that took up most of the upper part of his face.

Merle took a step forward. "Don'tchoo do it, son. Don't even—_Jim_…"

Jim shook his head and Merle called himself every swearword he could think of in his head for not thinking to move in with stealth before he went around shouting like a moron.

"Jim, don't-,"

With a small kick of his legs, Jim tipped the motorcycle over, but for once Merle didn't give a rat's ass about his precious bike.

"NO, YOU IDIOT!"

Merle tore across the fifteen feet of grass between him and Jim and throwing out his arms, grabbed hold of Jim's legs, hoisting him up so that the latter was sitting on his shoulders. The branch the mechanic had used to knot the length of rope onto was low, but not so low that Jim had any chance of touching the ground with his toes. Trying to not step on his bike, Merle held onto Jim tightly, wincing as the healing cut across the back of his head rubbed against one of Jim's pant legs.

"Y'stupid son've a bitch!" he spat.

He had dropped the flashlight in his haste to get to Jim and could see it illuminating the trees off to his right. Perhaps it was his adrenaline making out something that was not there to see or hear, but Merle had the strongest notion that he was being stalked. He had his knife, but he couldn't risk taking the slack off of the rope around Jim's neck as the man fought him, trying to beat his fists into Merle's head.

"Let go've me you asshole, let _go_!" Jim yelled.

"Shuddap!" hollered Merle, wondering just where the hell Dale had gone. Damn it, where was that old man? "Help!" he cried, hoping that Dale would hear him and come to his aid. If he ever needed someone else, anyone else, it was now. Hell, he couldn't do it all on his own. He only had two hands, after all, even if he was packing more artillery than a combat video game character with the cheats turned on. "Somebody better get their ass over here in five seconds or-,"

He stooped mid-sentence, seeing a staggering figure heading straight for him. It crossed in front of the flashlight's path and Merle saw the mottled gray skin, the puss-filled wound on its cheek, and its blood-stained teeth.

_Argh, sh—_it!

Digging into his belt, he pulled out his Hi-Power and did his best to aim with Jim still kicking and squirming, but the asshole on his shoulders was making it impossible. He did the only thing he could think of and punched Jim in the groin with the pistol. It had the desired effect of making Jim cry out and stop wriggling so that Merle could place the walker in his sights and let off a round before he lost his chance.

"Die again, you motherf-,"

There was another one. Of course, there _had_ to be another one. He knew Jim wouldn't stay still this time and was trying to reach his knife when the walker toppled over with an arrow through its head, leaking blood and brains onto the forest floor.

"I got him!" said Daryl, joining Merle so that Jim was now supported by both brothers. Andrea appeared with Dale not three seconds later and Merle handed her his knife, motioning for her to come closer.

"Take his weight," he told Daryl, stepping out from under Jim. "You, c'mere." He took Andrea's waist in both hands and lifted her bodily onto his shoulders as if she were a child hanging onto a father's head in a game of piggyback. He took a few staggering steps forward and around his motorcycle to balance her weight and saw her shadow reaching over to slice through Jim's rope. Her arm worked back and forth for a few tense and frantic moments before the rope snapped and Jim came crashing down on Daryl. Merle could no longer support Andrea and dropped her so that both of them fell onto the leaves and dirt, just missing the bike.

Groaning, Merle pushed himself up onto one elbow and seeing Jim at his feet, kicking him in the crotch again, muttering furiously, "Dumbass!"

**If you have any feedback, questions, comments, or cries of agony, I'd love to hear them!**


	10. Chapter 10: House on the Roadside

Dale had elected to keep Jim on suicide watch. With the help of the gallon or two of gas Daryl and Andrea had scavenged, the group was able to pack up and pull out of the now dangerous campsite as soon as they managed to stuff a still struggling Jim into the back of the wagon. In the end Andrea had to smack him over the head with Dale's rifle so that they could get underway. Merle didn't even bother to wipe the grass stains off the side of his bike as he revved it to life and took off after the wagon. When they were at least ten miles from the last spot, Daryl pulled the car over and then they made Merle relate the encounter with Jim.

In quick detail Merle described how he had returned to find the campsite seemingly deserted and discovered Jim teetering on the seat of his motorcycle. It seemed that Merle had found him just in time, but as Daryl and Andrea went into a mounting conversation about how they should have stayed behind to watch him, Merle rounded on Dale accusingly.

"And just where the hell were _you_?" he demanded.

"Up the road, putting down a walker that was coming towards the camp," Dale responded somewhat testily.

"Don't start," snapped Daryl, glaring at Merle.

Merle gaped, disbelieving at his little brother. He thought that after their combined efforts to disrupt Jim's attempted suicide that Daryl would surely have forgiven him, but when he saw the loathing behind his brother's eyes, he knew he had been completely wrong.

_Well, that shit didn't work out like how it was s'posed to_, he thought dismally to himself.

"All the same, Merle was there when we needed him to be which was when we weren't," said Andrea. "And I'm sure that we all appreciate that." She cast a meaningful look at Daryl when she said this and then gave Merle the first sign of a smile he had seen since she had shot Lori which for some reason made him feel better, if only slightly.

Having driven on through the night, they were all exhausted, but Dale offered to take the first watch as they sat around the fire Daryl had constructed. Merle removed the charred squirrel from the spit over the fire and cut into it with his knife to see if it was cooked through. He spent several minutes trying to cut it into equal portions as he bent over it with his back against a log but after the entire thing crumbled into a black mess on the plate he had been using he sat back, throwing his knife down and sighing. Across from him Daryl was cradling his crossbow, head hanging over the back of his lounge chair and mouth stretching wide open as he snored.

Merle glanced sideways and saw that Andrea was curled up beside him though with a good half foot of space between the two of them. Resting his head on the log, Merle watched the fire curl into tiny flickers of orange and whips of yellow before disappearing into the night…

He gave a slight start when he awoke the following morning to find Andrea's head next to his shoulder and her leg halfway onto his. She must have twitched in her sleep and kicked him, and that was what had alarmed him. He awkwardly wriggled free so that he wouldn't wake her and went to relieve himself behind a nearby tree. Zipping up his pants on his way back, he saw Jim beginning to stir in the back seat of the car. Merle threw open the door, grabbed two fistfuls of Jim's shirt and dragging him out, slammed the suicidal man into the side of the car.

"Now you listen here, y'little shit," he growled in barely more than a whisper. "Y'try and pull a stunt like that again and I'll kill you myself but I'll make it so slow and painful that it'll make what happened t'Lori look like a quick, easy, and peaceful death. Y'nearly got me killed and y'used _my_ bike as your kickoff. If those grass stains don't come off, I'll leave a permanent stain on you, get me?"

Grimacing as his head injury took its toll, Jim squinted at Merle through bleary eyes.

"I wasn't…I didn't…" he stammered. "Not thinking properly."

"Y'don't say?" said Merle sardonically. "I'm warnin' you, pal, one more've those head-up-your-ass moments and I'll really put your head up your ass."

"Okay, okay," said Jim, palms raised upward for peace.

Merle released him and then pointed menacingly at him. Jim looked absolutely relieved and rubbed at his neck where the rope had chafed his skin. Giving Jim the "I'm watching you" look and gesture, Merle returned to the campfire where Dale was putting out the flames.

"You could have handled that differently," he said reprovingly.

It was on Merle's mind to tell Dale just what he thought of _that_ advice, but reminded himself that Dale had stood watch during the night when Merle so desperately wanted to sleep and so with much effort he bit his tongue and said nothing in response.

They were on the road by complete sunup and Merle kept behind the car, watching the exhaust pipe smoking in protest and wondering how his life could have taken a complete one eighty. He had lost Daryl's alliance; he knew that now, and it was his own damn fault but he had never expected to gain Andrea's support. At the moment he wasn't the least bit sure how he felt about that, but he was doing his best to ignore the uncomfortable fluttering sensation he had gotten in his stomach when he saw her lying beside him that morning. As if the very thought was shameful, he took his hand off of the handlebars and smacked himself across the face.

_Y'cut that shit out_, he told himself firmly. _That's the last thing y'need t'be thinkin' of right now._

The car finally gave out just shy of a two story house that might have belonged to the owner of the gas stop a little ways up the road but they didn't expect to find gas at either location. Dale wanted to keep going on foot, but Merle, who by now was absolutely sick of always being on the move put his foot down.

"No, we ain't goin' nowhere," he said firmly. "Summer's comin' to an end and we gotta stay someplace, don't we? What, y'plan t'just keep drivin' till y'hit the Pacific? I can tell ya, old timer, that there ain't that much gas left in the entire country t'get us that far and even if there was, there'd be no sense in it. I thought we were tryin' t'survive here, huh? Ain't that right? That's not gonna happen if we keep movin'. I say we just hold up in this place, get our bearings, and figure out what we're gonna do for the fall, or is that not a sensible idea?" He looked around at the others, daring them to contradict him.

Jim kicked at the loose gravel on the walkway but said nothing, subconsciously touching the spot on his head where Andrea had hit him. Daryl certainly looked as if he agreed with Merle in the way that he was scoping out the house, examining the shutters and the roof, but he wasn't speaking up. Andrea came to Merle's defense, as he hoped she would.

"I'm with Merle on this one, Dale," she said, resting her hands on her hips. "I don't think I could stand another five minutes in that backseat. I never feel safe at night; it's like I'm giving the walkers an open shot at me every chance I get. I think it would benefit the group if we were to just recuperate here, especially after-," she broke off, looking scared.

To cover the awkward moment Merle added, "Since no one else is voicin' their opinion, that makes the vote two t'one for staying put."

Dale gave in, though it had never been much of an argument. He opted to start unpacking the car while keeping a close eye on Jim so that the other three could search and clear out the house. Merle led the way with his Hi-Power and knife out since it would be too close of quarters to swing his bat once they were inside. Andrea was right behind him with Jim's screwdriver and her Ladysmith and Daryl brought up the rear, crossbow notched. Merle figured that the house was devoid of anyone—anyone living anyway, and his suspicions were confirmed when he saw that the door was ajar. It wouldn't have been wide open if the summer breezes were always swooping in and playing a game of tag with it, but he was almost positive that something had gotten in, whether it was a family of rats or a couple of walkers.

He used his pistol to push the door open and surveyed the hallway with apprehension. He saw a thin layer of dust coating the hardwood floor but what made him stop was the sight of footprints that had disturbed the fluffy gray cover, criss-crossing and mingling. Pressing a finger to his lips, he motioned for Daryl to take the stairs to the second level and for Andrea to go right through the sitting room while he ventured down the hall. He walked heel to toe, bent slightly at the waist with his gun hand at the forefront. Halfway down the hall he spotted a door that most likely led into a powder room and stepped back from it, slowly nudging it open with his foot. If there had been a walker in there, he would have seen it immediately since there was nowhere for it to hide unless it had somehow managed to squeeze itself into the toilet. He continued on to the end of the hall which ended in a sliding glass door that was locked but a bloody handprint on the white curtain made him grip his knife tighter as he pivoted very slowly and quietly to the left. Entering the kitchen he circled the island table all the while thinking that for the owner of a side road convenient store, the person who had owned the place had been living in wealth, something Merle hardly understood the meaning of.

After clearing the kitchen he proceeded into the adjoining dining room that wrapped around and connected to the sitting room so that he and Andrea met up on either side of the polished oak table. She shook her head and he did the same.

Then they heard a crash and thud from above. Merle was in the process of running around the table when he heard Daryl call out, "'M'okay!"

"Jackass," said Merle quietly, rolling his eyes. "Doesn't know the meaning've 'quiet', does he?" He looked to Andrea who was watching him as if considering how to answer when suddenly her eyes snapped onto something behind him and he spun just in time to see a broad chest sporting a sewn-on nametag that read "Hello, my name is Skip" before the walker collided with him and they both went down, knocking over one of the cushioned chairs. Merle had put the side of his knife to the walker's mouth to keep it from biting down on him when they fell but on impact the knife slipped from his grip and he scrabbled at the walker's throat to keep it back. Andrea's foot came out of nowhere and slammed into the walker's face, breaking its jaw so that Merle could throw it off of him, gain the upper hand, and snatch up his knife. He drove it through the walker's left nostril and then swore, holding the back of his head.

"Don't tell me I'm bleedin'," he said imploringly to Andrea who, looking slightly shaken, came around behind him to examine him.

"No, you're okay," she confirmed.

"Is it clear in there?" called Dale's worried voice from outside.

Merle slapped his palm over his face and replied with a very sarcastic, "It is now!"


	11. Chapter 11: Flushing Out Sins

The house had no calendar, which Merle found rather odd, but due to this sad fact, he could not tell how long they had been there. Dale kept them up to speed on the time of day, but as to whether it was a Sunday or a Wednesday, none of them knew and hadn't known since the world went to hell in a very large, very screwed up hand basket. The days grew shorter, colder, and bitterer as summer said goodbye to the East Coast and the winds of fall put in their first appearance. The grass started to turn an ugly faded yellow and the multicolored leaves were ever piling up on the porch so that at least twice a day Jim or Andrea went out to sweep them onto the lawn out of annoyance and habit more than anything else since there was no call to impress anyone these days with a spotlessly clean- porch.

Merle was most thankful for not one, not two, but _three_ proper bathrooms. Nothing said home like a toilet and even better, a working toilet. Praise the Lord for indoor plumbing. He took one of the four rooms upstairs which was the only one that faced the front yard. It had an adjoining bathroom that also connected to Andrea's room but neither of them minded since both of them kept their doors locked at night. Merle concluded that his room had been for guests since the bed was a neutral brown color, looking forlorn and unused and the walls were decorated with paintings of conch shells and palm trees. Andrea's room had been a young boy's probably around ten years old who had a keen interest in locomotives and airplanes, for the walls were lined with drawings and scribbles of almost every machine imaginable and there were several toy and model sets along the shelves. Jim, regrettably, was the last to choose and had therefore ended up with the light purple-colored nursery which had, in fact, no bed, but a crib that wouldn't even fit half of the mechanic if he had cared to try and squeeze himself into it. Merle and Daryl had had to drag one of the couches from the sitting room up the stairwell and they tossed the crib out into the garage in case they needed it-for whatever reason—later. Daryl's room was between Andrea's and Jim's and it too had been a boy's, though a much older one, perhaps sixteen or seventeen and it was almost completely blank, devoid of any interests. There was a bare dresser, an equally deserted desk, and a light tan set of bed sheets. Perhaps the boy had never lived at home or he had died before the apocalypse, but when Daryl found a box of postcards addressed to a "Chad Finley", he knew that the boy had at least had some sort of joy in life.

Dale slept in the master bedroom on the first floor simply because Andrea didn't want him climbing the stairs every day with his arthritis starting to creep up on him. He and Jim boarded up all the windows on the first floor to make him feel more secure and constructed trip wires that set off can alarms at both doors in case walkers, or anyone else, did break in.

The chores were divided fairly and accordingly: Merle and Daryl would hunt and go scavenging, sometimes taking Andrea along; Jim made sure the weapons were clean and easily accessible; Dale checked on the plumbing at regular intervals; Andrea tried the radio they had found in the garage three times every day. All of them cleaned, all of them cooked, and none of them complained. None of them talked much. Despite the feeling of security, of solitude, they were still broken; haunted by all of those they had lost. Merle now admitted that the people at camp were his companions, relation or none. If he hadn't heard word of them by now, he could only assume that they had died or gone down some other road. He didn't waste much of his sympathy on them since he had never really been one of them to begin with. While he might be somewhat of a member of the group he was with now, he could never belong, not after the things he had said to Daryl.

Daryl was still not speaking to him if he could help it. Not even a number of weeks under a solid roof could reconcile what had broken between them and before he drifted off every night Merle cursed his brother for taking what Merle told him when he was still a boy about never forgiving the people who hurt him seriously. Of course Merle hadn't meant himself, but at the time, he could never have predicted _this_.

Inwardly, Merle might have changed somewhat when it came to letting up on the urge to be an asshole, but he still didn't give a damn what the others thought of him. He still relied heavily on his drugs for one need or another, though he looked forward to taking them less and less as time wore on.

One afternoon as he went to take a snort in the bathroom he shared with Andrea, he caught his reflection in the mirror for the first time since moving in. He had been avoiding all of the mirrors almost religiously and had gotten quite good at resisting the temptation to look at any sort of reflection, but as he lit the candle to give light to his drugs, the brilliant shine from the match had caught the glass of the mirror and made him look. His hair was longer now so that the small bit of brown he had left was clearly visible against the salt and pepper gray tones that had been dominant when he had his cropped style. Now his hair was beginning to retain its natural curl and had to be at least three quarters of an inch long. His facial hair was stubble at the moment since he had expertly shaved without a mirror not two days ago with a disposable razor he had found under the sink, but the color of it was also graying, which added another six years to his age. He had dark purple bags under his eyes from stress, troubled sleep, and of course, the damn drugs. If he didn't know any better, he would have said that the person in the mirror was actually a vision of himself in another nine or ten years (providing that he lived that long) or else a reincarnation of his dad.

_Hell no_. He had promised himself and Daryl one thing and that was to _not_ turn into the self-centered, good-for-nothing bastard of a man who fathered both Merle and Daryl and then left them for drugs.

_Like I did_, thought Merle with a sickening jolt through his stomach. _I chose elation over relation. No wonder Daryl's always pissed_. It hadn't occurred to Merle that he had ever been emotionally hurting his little brother all those times he left to get high, and yet that was what had hardened Merle, made his temper skyrocket, and made Daryl finally crack. Every sniff of that damn powder had brought him closer and closer to the brink of World War III against his own flesh and blood. Daryl was indeed Merle's creation, but someone sculpted from Merle's faults, _by_ his faults, and not by Merle himself. And that was some messed up shit.

Suddenly Merle felt a fountain of pure rage pouring into him, though it wasn't centered on Daryl. He was unforgivably furious with himself for allowing this to happen all in the name of crack cocaine. He dug around under the sink for his bag and fished out every last sample of the stuff he had. In a towering temper h crossed over to the water closet, uncapped all of the tubes he had, and poured the whole stock into the toilet. As he flushed he dropped all of the tubes and had to clutch the toilet seat to keep himself from falling. His rush of emotion had been triggered by remorse, something he rarely felt and was not at all familiar with.

Call it weakness, call it coming to his senses, but whatever the hell it was, it didn't agree with him at all and before he could even put a name to his feelings, he gave a small gag prior to hurling spectacularly into the toilet. His breakfast of stale Fruit Loops and canned peaches came spilling up out of his mouth and he sank down onto his knees, holding the rim of the toilet as he assumed the position he had been in three times before. Being dead drunk was nothing compared to the fire and sheer agony that his insides were screaming with now. He had that horrible feeling in the back of his throat that he knew he was going to vomit again and as the second stream escaped his mouth, he groaned, scrabbling for the toilet paper to wipe his chin.

Next moment he felt a hand on his shoulder and heard Andrea saying something to him, though he was too out of it to understand. Of course someone would have heard him sounding like a dying walrus in the toilet room if he had both of the doors open leading out from the bathroom and sounds carried in the house with the hardwood floors now that the dust had been cleared out. Merle didn't trust himself to try and speak to Andrea but ducked down once again to puke. This time when he surfaced he felt a cold cloth on the back of his neck and shivered slightly as the water trickled down his spine, but it was a relief against the heat of his fever. Six more times his head made the journey into the toilet bowl to return his food to nature, the original provider and at long last he collapsed back against the wall, sweating profusely.

Andrea flushed the toilet and applied the cloth to his forehead, sponging the perspiration away as she pressed her knuckles to his cheek, shaking her head. She glanced at the tubes littering the floor around the toilet but to his immense relief, she didn't comment on them. Instead she mopped up the trickle of vomit and saliva running down Merle's chin and sat down opposite him. He was grateful that she didn't try to move him to his bed; he knew he never would have made it and collapsing on Andrea as she tried to transport him would only have made their relationship even more discomfited. Still, he was glad to have her there with him as the fever took its toll on him.

Through half open eyes he sometimes stared at her for a few moments and other times he would just force himself to concentrate on the design on her jacket. She changed the wet towels on his forehead and neck every so often and checked his temperature at the same time. When Dale and Jim appeared in the doorway, Merle saw their lips moving as they spoke to her, though their words were only a garbled mess to his ears. Dale left and returned shortly with a pillow, the latter which he set on the floor that had been cleared of tubes by Andrea hours before. He and Andrea eased Merle down onto his side and then draped the blanket over him. Andrea left for a while, Merle didn't know how long, and while she was absent Jim stood over him like a guard dog, watching dutifully. When Andrea put in another appearance sometime later she was in her nightshirt and had a blanket and pillow herself which she spread out beside Merle so that they were almost touching once again. Earlier that day Merle would never have thought both of them could lie down side by side in the water closet of all places, and yet here they were.

Merle dozed in and out of painful, stomach-cramping sleep and every time he awoke it seemed days later. One time the blurry veil that often covers the eyes when one first opens them after a long period of sleep revealed a silhouette to him standing above, just watching with arms folded.

He made no sense of it at all and groaning, closed his eyes once more.


	12. Chapter 12: The Fathering Type

For two days Merle did not leave the water closet and for those two nights, Andrea slept directly beside him, only leaving to use the restroom between Daryl and Jim's rooms or to eat and during those times either Jim or Dale would stand watch over him. He didn't mind much; he mostly slept through the long hours, thinking of as little as he could. After the attack on his brain from taking and then rejecting his drugs, he didn't think he could stand to have one more unnecessary thought enter his mind.

The third day was an important one because Andrea and Dale moved him to his bed and planted a bucket next to him in case he needed to vomit again, but on the contrary, he actually felt a growing cramp in his stomach from lack of food and Andrea brought him up a bowl of broth that he insisted on eating without her help. Having her mop sweat off of his forehead was one thing, but having her spoon feed him was quite another and he was having none of it. Dale was the overseer on Merle's health and wouldn't let him go downstairs until the eve of the sixth day on which Merle was feeling particularly rebellious not to mention pissed off. He was sick of his room, sick of lying down, and sick of _broth_. He stormed down the stairs in a rage and threw open the pantry doors, grabbing the nearest can which happened to contain pumpkin pie mix, but he ate the whole thing anyway and then drained four glasses of water.

Jim made the comment that he was back to his normal, moody self exactly one week after his relapse which was not exactly a compliment and so Merle offered to introduce his foot to Jim's nether regions in retaliation for his smart-ass remark.

Seeing as how they would soon exhaust the resources closest to them, they needed to find more gas to fill up the wagon and motorcycle with and seeing as how Merle and Daryl had scouted at least five miles in every direction, that meant that they would have to set a day aside to do just that. Dale would remain behind while the other four set out on foot west bound on the road and just before they left he issued a very quiet but very serious threat to Merle while Andrea was busy picking out her weapons.

"First sign of trouble, you haul ass back here and keep her in front of you. I don't like staying behind one bit, but I accept the fact that I'm not young and will only slow you four down, so I don't have any other choice. Since I can't be there, I'm giving you specifically the duty of looking out for her _if she needs it_. You know how she gets when someone tries to babysit her, so don't do that."

"And just why'm I the lucky winner of the shield job?" asked Merle, fitting his bat harness on.

"Because she'd do the same for you and because you know you'll do it anyway," said Dale shrewdly. "I just want you to be conscious that you are doing it."

This answer did nothing to clear Merle's head of confusing thoughts.

%%%

From what Merle had seen of buildings sitting just off the road, there was more than likely something they needed as well as something that wanted to eat them inside of it and so when the four of them came upon an auto repair shop about eight miles up the road, their first instinct was not to go inside. They stood in the middle of the road, all four abreast and idling like idiots until Daryl scoffed and started forward.

"No better place besides a gas station t'find gas than a repair shop, walkers be damned. Y'all wanna keep gawkin' like morons, go 'head, but I'm goin' in."

"You were standin' here gawkin' just like the rest've us," Merle pointed out but Daryl shot him the middle finger behind his back and this didn't contribute to their conversation in the least. Daryl was not ignoring him, but he still wouldn't talk to Merle if he could avoid it which made Merle feel, if anything, worse. Still, he fell into line behind Daryl and followed him to the double glass doors which were still intact and clear of blood. That was always a good sign. Once inside, Merle came face to face with two sawed-off shotguns held by two half-mad-looking men sporting overgrown, filthy beards and a pungent, disgusting smell of something that rolled around in the mud and crapped before it died.

"Weapons down," the ginger one commanded.

Reminding himself to send his boot up Daryl's ass for his stupidity later, Merle set his rifle down at his feet and then put his hands in the air. Behind him Andrea dropped her Ladysmith and on her left Jim set his bat down. Daryl, however, still held onto his crossbow defiantly.

"We ain't lookin' for any trouble," he said, his voice shaking slightly with anger.

"What d'you want?" asked the black-haired one in a tone that suggested fear on every level, but not strength. This act of ambushing Merle and the others was just a disguise for whatever it was they were really afraid of. "Any of you bitten?"

"Not yet," answered Daryl, still aiming his crossbow at the ginger one who did not seem as calm, or as ready to put down his weapon than his partner did. "Either of you?"

The ginger man glared at the black-haired one in warning, but it seemed as if the black-haired one was desperate. He lowered his shotgun and nodded. "Three days ago we both went out looking for some store that might have medicine for my wife but in the tourist stop we ran into some of those things and—and we both got bit. We brought the medicine back to my wife, but she had already died and we had to shoot her before she came back as whatever the hell those things are. I've been worried that we might turn before someone came. See, I have a daughter and she's only a year old-,"

"Just shut up," said the ginger man, but the black-haired man was having none of it from his friend.

"Who the hell gives a damn if they're here to take anything? They can have it for all I care; we won't be needing it, will we? We'll both be gone inside of two days if not before and I'm not letting me little girl suffer that fate when there's good people out there who would take her in."

Merle let his jaw drop open ever so slightly. This man would willingly give his infant daughter over to a group of complete strangers whom he knew nothing about to spare her the life of a walker or starving to death just because he assumed the strangers to be good people. Not only that, but he also assumed that Merle and the other three were going to agree to take her in. That was going a bit far—

"Of course we'll take her," said Andrea before any of the men could speak. Her tone was kind, trusting, and the warmth in it would have made Merle hand over his own child to her, if he ever considered having one, which he didn't and wouldn't. Ever.

The black-haired man burst into tears of joy, or however much joy a dying man could have when he found someone to take his daughter away to an unknown fate. Desperation could do that to a man and Merle vowed to never let it happen to him. No matter how fraught he was, no matter how bleak his situation, Merle would never resort to tears.

"She's back here," said the father, leading them passed his enraged friend to the back counter that was closed off and so he climbed over, ducking out of sight for a moment but reappearing a second later with a bundle wrapped in an ugly brown blanket that had flecks of blood on it. As he lifted her, Merle saw his shirt shift to reveal a blood-soaked section on his shoulder where he had apparently been bitten. All at once and out of the blue, Merle suddenly didn't want that man holding the girl. He pushed Daryl aside and took her from his hands, handing the bundle of precious life to Andrea who secured a firm hold on her, shifting her reacquired Ladysmith to her non dominant hand.

The black-haired man clambered back over the counter and kissed his daughter on the head, weeping silent tears as he stroked her wavy blonde hair that was still quite short. She did not wake, sleeping peacefully in Andrea's arms. The sight of the father standing there, wanting to keep his child, but being unable to for reasons out of his control made a hard lump form in Merle's throat. This situation was nothing like the one involving him, Daryl, and their dad. This man who stood before him cared more about his daughter in his dying moments than Merle and Daryl's dad had cared about them his entire life.

"D'you want us t'end it now b'fore we leave?" asked Daryl rather awkwardly, looking down and away from the father who shook his head and murmured a note of polite rejection..

"Let's find what we came here for first," suggested Jim, scanning the shelves for anything that they might be able to use. Being a mechanic, he knew exactly what he was doing and Merle wasn't about to interrupt him.

"Go wait outside," he told Andrea in an undertone. She shifted the girl into the nook of her elbow pit and headed out the door. The father did not follow, but simply stared in her wake. Daryl moved around behind Jim, stuffing anything they might need into a burlap sack the father provided them with. Once he had cleared the shelves of anything useful, Jim moved on into the garage and returned a few minutes later with two nearly full canisters of gas and looking rather pleased with himself. If Jim had succeeded in committing suicide, Merle knew he could have found the gas just as easily, though he wasn't in the mood to be a bubble burster at the moment and so he didn't voice his opinion aloud.

"Well, I guess we're done here," said Jim, sidling towards the door.

"We'll take good care've her," promised Daryl and Merle added an unnecessary and unhelpful, "Yeah," which earned him a look of incredulous tactlessness from both Jim and Daryl.

"She likes singing," said the father. "And she can't eat cashews or walnuts…"

_Just thought you'd throw that out there,_ thought Merle sarcastically. _Just in case we decided to give her cashews and end up killing her_.

Jim suddenly made a sound near the door and Merle turned to see the ginger man blocking his way.

"What's your problem?" asked Jim. "Get out of the way."

The ginger man still had his shotgun in hand and drove the barrel into Jim's stomach, knocking him back a few feet. He raised his weapon to waist level at Merle who had his hands around his rifle, but it was nowhere near ready to be used.

"NO!" shouted the father and a second later a half-buzz half-whistle sound filled Merle's ears as an arrow ripped through the air to strike the ginger man between the eyes. Daryl filed passed Merle, notching another arrow to his crossbow as he stood over the ginger man and yanked out the arrow by pressing down on the fallen's head with his shoe. Without another word, he strode out the door, leaving just Merle and Jim behind with the father who had sank down onto his knees, hands over his mouth in horror.

Merle felt like a real ass just leaving him there to brood over his dead friend's body waiting for the fever to set in. He told Jim to go on ahead and then approached the father. "It'll be quick," he said, showing him the Hi-Power. "I don't mind using a bullet if it'd help."

The father didn't notice Merle at first but very slowly came out of his stupor and gazed, open-mouthed at him for the longest time. "You don't seem the fathering type," he said at last, as if this were his worst fear concerning his daughter.

Merle shrugged. "I ain't the anything type, but that woman'll take care've your lil' girl. I ain't got a lotta time here, pal, so I need a yes or no answer."

The father bowed his head and then nodded, though it was almost nonexistent. Merle placed the Hi-Power in a tuft of his black hair right above the ear and waited for him to say any last mental prayer if he could think of one. Looking away, he fired and then without waiting to see the result, shuffled out the door as quickly as he could. Only when he and the others had put at least a half mile behind them in silence did Merle realize with a jolt and a feeling of award-winning stupidity that they forgot to ask the father what the girl's name was.

Extra points for being dumbasses.


	13. Chapter 13: Without a Name

Dale's face was one of surprise and confusion when they four of them strode up the dying lawn. By then the girl had awoken, though she only made a few small noises of discomfort to their great relief. She had light brown eyes like her father but the similarity ended there and Merle supposed that she had her mother's looks. Andrea ignored Dale's incredulous stare and continued on into the kitchen where she found a masher and began to grind up some canned fruit for the baby to eat for dinner. Jim went to fill up the car and the motorcycle in the driveway while Daryl climbed the porch railing onto the roof to keep watch until complete sundown when Merle would take his turn.

Sliding out of his harness, Merle dropped it along with his bat and rifle in the coat closet and then went into the powder room to wash off his right hand where some of the father's blood had splattered his skin. He let the water run for a few moments, watching the flow turn bright pink as it swept over his hand in a mesmerizing fashion until a knock on the door made him shut off the faucet. Dale stood there, eyebrow raised and Merle shrugged innocently.

"What?" he asked.

"Where did that little girl come from?" he asked in a low tone that did not carry to Andrea in the kitchen feeding the subject of their conversation.

Sparing Dale the gruesome details, Merle explained and when he finished he pointed out, "She wanted the baby and she said yes b'fore any've us got a chance t'say no, so don't y'go thinkin' this is my fault."

"I wasn't going to say that," said Dale testily. "I just hope you know that you'll have as much responsibility for that child as the rest of us."

"What, y'think I'd let her starve?" asked Merle.

"You know what I mean," answered Dale.

"Don'tchoo be tellin' me what I'mma do and not do 'round here," said Merle, jabbing his finger into Dale's chest. "I'm tryin' not t'piss anyone off, but that don't mean I'm takin' orders from you. Keep it in mind that I'm still the best chance y'got for survival."

He was more annoyed than angry at the old man and took that irritation out on the leftover rabbit from the day before. Using a kitchen knife he skewered a leg with savage pleasure while watching Andrea feed the girl who was enthusiastically clapping her hands. When Andrea saw Merle watching she mopped up the girl's face with a kitchen towel and asked, "Well, what are we going to do about her name?"

Perhaps he was just being paranoid, but Merle thought that he heard a bit of sarcasm and underlying accusation in her tone. As if it were _his_ fault that they forgot to ask what the child's name was, and he was on the verge of pointing this out when Andrea continued on without waiting for him to respond.

"Don't kill yourself trying to think up a name, but it should be decided quickly so that she can get used to it. And for future purposes, maybe a surname would be beneficial as well."

This was going too far. First he had to think up a name, he, who was one of the most unimaginative people in the world when it came to this sort of thing, but Andrea was also suggesting that he provide the girl with _his_ last name? In hell…

"It don't matter t'me whatchoo call her, but she ain't havin' my name," he said firmly to stress his point. "She ain't mine and never will be."

"She'll know in time that we aren't her parents, none of us," said Andrea with forced patience, "but while we're trying to survive here that means trying to hold on to the society and humanity that we grew up with, so that means giving her a last name."

"Y'both are blonde, give her your name," Merle suggested, tearing the meat off of his rabbit leg.

Andrea rested her elbow on the table, running her fingers over her face in exasperation. "You're pathetic," she said wearily. "That's the worst excuse I've ever heard. Fine, she can have my name, but I want to consult everyone before I suggest first names."

"Lemme put it t'you straight," said Merle, gnawing on the leg bone. "You're the one who wanted her, who took her, and who can relate closet t'her. I ain't got no experience with kids, 'specially girls, and I doubt Dale or Jim do either, so just call her whatever the hell y'want."

Andrea lifted the girl off of the back-seated stool she had been sitting on and held her up to Merle so that the two were face to face. Caramel brown eyes gazed at him with curiosity and wonder and the girl reached out a small, soft hand to touch his forehead. Merle leaned back, uncomfortably aware of Andrea watching like a hawk. He couldn't explain the feeling that rippled through his gut as the girl reached out her hands for him, but it was strange enough to make him retreat to the other side of the counter.

"She's not going to judge you," said Andrea as if her point had been proven. "She doesn't know how much of an asshole you are, so give her a fresh start, huh? No one said she has to be yours and no one will ever suspect that because in case you didn't notice, pretty much _no one _exists, Merle. Anyone who might have had a go at you for having a kid is dead, anyone who doesn't know you won't care, and everyone who does know you knows perfectly well that she's not your daughter, but you _will_ help raise her because you are one of five people that she has. She has earned that much from you to at least get your help. I don't care if you continue to be a jerk to the rest of us, but I am asking you to be whatever she needs you to be, okay? Can you just do that, at least?"

Well, if that was all Andrea expected out of him, it couldn't hurt. He wouldn't have to spend endless nights with the baby if there were four other people to do it and the most he had to do was keep an eye on her when she started walking, if she couldn't already. He raised and lowered one shoulder in surrender and without warning Andrea deposited the girl in his arms with the command of, "Hold her while I head down to the station."

"Wait, what-?"

"She'll need diapers," said Andrea matter-o-factly as she rested a crowbar atop her shoulder.

Merle held the girl out at arm's length, unsure of what to do with her as she continued to watch him, hand in her mouth with a small line of drool trickling out. She smiled and Merle, and he, still keeping her as far from his body as possible, called out rather weakly, "I dunno what t'do with—Andrea? _Andrea_! Damn it!' He plopped the girl down on the floor and backed up a few paces until he was cornered, hoping that she would stay still.

"Stay," he commanded, hoping she understood enough to obey.

She sat for a few minutes, intrigued by her new surroundings before using the island to help her stand and coming wobbly to her feet. She stretched out her arms and made a few ungainly steps towards Merle. Her tiny little legs gave out and she sat down rather suddenly and curled into a ball at his feet.

This was ridiculous. Why the hell was he so nervous and scared of this little girl when he had taken on an entire horde of walkers? Well, from what he had seen with Daryl, babies wanted to touch, grab, and bite everything just like walkers except the former were only curious whereas the latter were vicious. Merle could put a bullet in the walker's head but as far as the baby was concerned, he had to endure her inquisitiveness unless someone took her off of his hands.

That was it. He'd just plop her into Dale's lap and take off. He picked her up rather awkwardly and rested her against his hip as he went about the house calling Dale's name, but when the old man didn't answer Merle swore again, causing the baby to laugh. Already that was a bad sign if his cursing brought laughter to her. Andrea would give him verbal hell if she caught on to it.

Just then a rifle report from outside rang out and Merle dashed onto the porch to see Jim and Dale taking careful aim at a handful of walkers ambling up the road towards them. On the roof above Merle heard Daryl cocking the Mossberg. Thinking that of all his stupid ideas, the one to take the baby outside during a shootout was probably the gold winner, he made to go back inside, but an ugly, slack-jawed face appeared on the right side of the railing and Merle groaned. He didn't want the baby to see the kill and so with difficulty he managed to wrap the hand that held her around her eyes and drew his Hi-Power. The walker quickened its pace towards him and he waited until it was mounting the steps to shoot. The bullet knocked the corpse backward onto the pathway and at the same time Merle heard Andrea holler his name.

_Well, shit_, he thought miserably to himself.

"What the _hell_ are you doing?" Andrea thundered, storming up the lawn with a basket overflowing with whatever baby supplies she could find from the convenient store.

"Keep y'bra on, woman, I didn't let her watch any've it. I heard a shot and came runnin'; it's instinct, all right? Didn't do no harm t'no one."

"Give her to me," Andrea commanded, to which Merle was only too willing to respond.

"Sure, take her," he said, handing the baby over to Andrea's waiting arms. Andrea felt the girl's pulse and checked her eyes for a sign of tears, but there were none.

"She's fine, I keep tellin' ya," said Merle, setting the basket on his shoulder and pushing the door farther open for Andrea. "I was prob'ly more scared than she was." He saw Dale and Jim dragging the bodies across the street to pile up and burn before Andrea called him into the kitchen. She had him set the basket on the counter and start unloading and inwardly Merle was cursing his decision to ever step foot inside that repair shop. He unearthed baby crackers, a few jars of soft food, two bibs, a handful of bottles, a pacifier, a stuffed zebra, six packs of diapers, and every pack of hand sanitizing wipes the store must have held.

"In time we'll have to venture further out to find new clothes and more diapers and such," said Andrea. "I hope you realize it's not going to be like before. We're going to have to be extremely cautious with her around. You and Daryl can move the crib back into my room; I'm glad we decided to not throw it out…" She rambled on about this and that while Merle hardly paid attention, though when a very nasty smell hit his nostrils, he felt a wave of horror. He leaned in closer to the baby just to double check and when he was sure that she was the source, made a bee-line for the front door, deciding to take his watch early.


	14. Chapter 14: Behind White Bars

He got landed with the very task he had been avoiding on the fourth day after bringing the girl back with them and Andrea coached him on the changing of a diaper while he muttered threats under his breath. Daryl laughed his ass off well out of Merle's reach while still refusing to have a polite conversation with his elder brother. With no feedback from Merle or Daryl, Andrea, Dale, and Jim put their heads together and decided to rechristen the girl Ari Delaney, Ari because it was the only name all three of them liked, and Delaney after Andrea's maternal grandmother. Since Merle and Daryl had offered no help in naming the child, they couldn't complain, not that they did.

Ari grew on the others quite quickly, even Daryl who could be seen sometimes fashioning little wooden figures out of his knife for her to play with. As she became accustomed to their faces, they began to teach her their names to add to her list of limited vocabulary. She was still quiet for a child of her age, but this was only a bonus in walker-invested territory. Merle began ticking off days on a scratch pad he found in the office and when two weeks had gone by, he counted only seven walkers in their area that they had put down, including the five that had come wandering in the day they brought Ari home. She slept in Andrea's room and very rarely did Merle hear her cry in her sleep, but when she did, he found his pillow subconsciously and slapped it over his ears to muffle the sound. Only once did Andrea come and wake up Merle to sit with Ari while Andrea went to heat up some milk for her.

The girl was certainly spirited and Merle admired her bravery as she tested her abilities as well as their patience. She would start to climb the stairs, holding the railing with her tiny fists or go exploring in the kitchen drawers and they had to stop her before she brought out the pots and pans and alerted any walkers in the area. However, Merle still kept his distance from her. He had suffered through losing his brother to the realms of cold-shouldered, unforgiving loneliness and he wasn't about to get attached to his little girl only to have something happen that would ruin that. Besides, the black-haired man had been right; he wasn't the fathering type. If that kid had a shroud of common sense, even at her age, the very sight of Merle should have been enough to send her squealing and crying to Andrea in terror. But she didn't fear him. If anything, she was more inquisitive about him than anyone else and she took to following him around the house until he retreated to his room which was blocked off from her by a gate Jim had dug out of the garage and installed at the bottom of the staircase.

It wasn't until they had had her nearly a month (and by now Merle figured that they were in the middle of October) that Dale thought it was time to go scavenging again. He insisted on accompanying the group this time which meant that someone had to stay behind and due to the fact that Merle had work to do on his bike anyway, Andrea volunteered him for babysitting duty. He had a right fit for twenty minutes after this and only agreed to it if they waited until Ari did her business and then went down for a nap before leaving. It was mid morning by the time the four finally got going and Merle, still fuming about being left behind, set to fixing the odd rattling noise coming from the front end of his motorcycle.

He kept an ear open to listen for Ari's cries, with the door propped open, though if she did start to, he would take as much time as he could getting to her. She only woke up crying if one; she had had a bad dream or two; she filled her diaper and since bad dreams were becoming a rarity, he was in no hurry to answer her call if he heard it. The fall sun baked overhead and the sweat dripped steadily off the tip of his nose as his oily fingers searched for the evading noise. At noon he retreated into the shade of the house, listening carefully, but heard nothing. He downed a glass of water and stuffed half of a granola bar that he had found in the back of the pantry into his mouth.

Just as he was getting ready to head back out for round two with his bike, he saw three figures headed towards the house and they weren't members of his group. All three were men of equal stock and height, though all three were armed well, from what Merle could tell at such a distance. He quickly shut the door from where he had had it cracked open and slung his weapons on, checking his rounds. He knew that he could not clear the house of the mess Ari had left in time and so he hoped that if they men broke in, they would think that at least for the moment, no one was home. Trying to think of a hiding place, he waited, listening for the sound of their approaching footsteps which stopped at the bottom of the porch.

"Y'think someone's living here?" asked a rough voice.

"Sure of it," answered another one, though much deeper. "I see the bike sitting out with a toolbox, so whoever it is must be inside or nearby."

"So what do we do?" asked the third voice, silky and smooth.

"We go in and say hello with our rifles," said the deep one.

_Mercenaries or marauders_, thought Merle. Damn it, this _had_ to happen to him while the others were out scouting, didn't it? It couldn't happen when he had backup and wasn't on babysitting duty, could it? No, Merle Dixon got the shittiest dealt hand of luck ever known to exit to man when it came to these sorts of things.

Thinking fast, he darted into Dale's room and hid in the small corner just behind the door so that if one of the men came in, they would think nothing of it. Since he left the front door unlocked, he was betting on the men's calculating skills to tell them that everyone had stepped out. Praying that the men decided to scope out the first floor before heading upstairs, Merle set his rifle against the wall and unsheathed his knife. Sure enough, he heard the heavy footfalls of cowboy boots tromping down the hallway and sucked in his stomach to avoid being seen as the man entered the room. His rifle barrel preceded him and he made a right into the master closet. Merle moved in, slapping a hand over the man's mouth and pulling him backwards straight into the knife tip. It didn't go out through the other end as the man struggled silently, scrabbling at Merle's wrist. When he went limp, Merle set him down quietly and contemplated his next move.

"Good stock of food," said the silky voiced man from the kitchen.

"At least one man's calling this place home," called the deep voice in response. "I see a garage suit with the name, let's see here…'Jim'. Well, we've got a mechanic of some sorts living here."

So one man was upstairs, the other in the kitchen. It was only a matter of time before the one upstairs moved into Andrea's room. Merle had two minutes tops to beat him there. He snuck out into the hall, blessing the rug Andrea had laid down as it muted his footsteps. He heard the man in the kitchen turn on the faucet, which faced away from the entryway. Merle only had one chance at this. Knife still dripping with the first man's blood, he sprinted for the kitchen and slid straight into the man, digging his knife into the latter's lower back and spine while holding his fingers tight over the intruder's mouth. As with the first man, this one struggled and kicked, putting up more of a fight than his comrade Merle had to shove the knife down deeper and even drew open the cutlery drawer, sliding the butcher blade across the man's jugular to finish the job.

Then he heard Ari crying.

"Looks like we've got ourselves a baby, boys!" said the deep voice from overhead.

_Not the kid, you bastard!_

Merle ran, not caring if he made noise or not. He didn't want to count on some small ounce of humanity in the intruder to spare Ari a bullet to the head. In seconds he was at the first landing and in another two he had reached the top of the stairs. Knife in hand, he saw the man's bulky silhouette standing in the doorway just watching Ari who was now crying louder as she saw that the person before her was not someone she knew. Merle closed the distance in three giant strides, crashing into the man just as he turned so that the knife only went into his hip. Merle dug his fist into the wound, trying to yank the blade out but the man had a knife of his own which he swiped out at Merle, slicing him across the cheek. Merle caught the man's attacking wrist with his left hand, fighting to force it out of the way as he tried to pull out his weapon. He didn't care to look at the man's face, eyes focused on the two knives, ears ringing with Ari's screams. As Merle freed his knife his opponent kneed him in the chest, sending him backwards so that Merle's weapon fell from his hands. He kicked out with his foot as the man crawled towards him and then rolled over, snatching up his blade. As he came onto his side he felt something pierce his upper right leg and gave a shout of pain. With a snarl he brought his hands together over the knife handle and plunged downward, straight through the man's forearm. Withdrawing quickly he turned the blade forty degrees and then stabbed, catching the man's turned neck. Blood seeped through the wound and Merle quickly dragged him far enough into the bathroom so that his head touched the tile, which would come clean of blood unlike the carpet.

He fell to his knees before the crib, right hand still grasping his knife, and wrapped his bleeding knuckles around the white bars, resting his forehead against two of them as he stared at Ari on the other side. Her tears had stopped and she crawled forward a few inches to touch his cheek once as if to say, _Good job_, before sitting back and smiling sweetly.

_Yeah, thanks kid, t'wasn't nothin'_.

%%%

He heard Andrea well before he saw her. It was past twilight when he heard her scream. Another half minute passed before her footsteps could be heard barging through the doorway, calling his name frantically.

"_Merle! Merle, where are you_?"

She found him sitting with his back to the crib, Ari nestled against his left arm as his right hand still held the knife and his Hi-Power lay in his lap, ready for use. He had not had the strength to go and close the door or pick up the bodies and so he sat here, watching his blood stain the blanket he had put underneath it, waiting for the others to return or for something else to come staggering through the doorway. Ari had not quieted until Merle removed her from her crib and placed her in his arm but she hadn't woken up to moan for food either and (thank God) her diaper remained clean.

"What happened?" asked Dale in alarm when he came wheezing into the room.

"Oh, y'know, somebody broke in and I took care've it," said Merle simply, though not altogether in awareness of himself or the others. For one thing, he didn't hear what Andrea said as she removed Ari from his arms and handed her to Daryl, and another, it was only when Andrea's fingernails dug into the skin on his cheeks did he realize she was holding his face.

"Merle, look at me!"

"What?" he asked groggily.

"Jim, go get the first aid kit from the powder room," commanded Dale, kneeling beside Merle and casting a cagey glance at the body in the bathroom.

"Three've 'em," said Merle as Dale inspected his wounds. "Knifed all three. Last bastard cut me twice. How's my face?"

Andrea gave him a cynical smile. "It'll look better once we clean it. It's not deep, just long. Your leg, on the other hand…looks like he was going for the femoral artery."

The what artery? "Didee get it?"

"If he had, you'd have died about two minutes after," said Dale, cutting the pant leg open further. "Andrea can sew these back up once I tend to this wound. Damn, you are one lucky bastard, Dixon."

"Yeah, I get that a lot," said Merle before he passed out.


	15. Chapter 15: Unforgiven, Never Forgotten

Personally Merle thought that no matter how better off he was hanging with this group, his luck never seemed to improve when it came to injuries and illnesses. The head injury, the spell of nausea and fever, and the knife wound were three painful instances that he would have been just fine without if he had chosen to ditch Daryl and head in the opposite direction when the walkers broke upon their first camp. It wasn't like Daryl was doing him any good now. Unless they were in Ari's presence, Daryl wanted nothing to do with Merle who had given up ever reconciling with him. He hobbled about the house on his bad leg despite Dale's protests that he should stay off of it and since he was now out of the running to scout the area for game every night, he was left to watch the baby. To keep from screaming his displeasure for all of the county to hear he threw himself on his bed and let out his rage into one of his pillows. When he surfaced from it he saw that he had bitten right through to the feathers, some of which had managed to sneak into his mouth. He blew them out with a soft _puft_ noise and then proceeded to continue letting out his anger into the fabric.

And so he spent countless hours monitoring the baby—just watching her, never touching her if he could help it—and longing for the chance to get out of the house and kill something. It wasn't Ari's fault that he was now confined to the house, but her squeal of delight at seeing him every morning did nothing to improve his mood. Andrea still fed her, changed her diapers (it seemed that a market about ten miles up the road held an infinite supply of the things) and sometimes sang her to sleep, all of which Merle refused to participate in. One diaper was quite enough to change and he thought he might just go mad if he had to sit there and spoon mashed fruit into Ari's mouth or stand over her crib and _sing _to her. He could whistle, but his singing voice might just scare Ari enough to fill up another diaper.

Even though he had convinced himself that he wanted nothing to do with Daryl anymore, he couldn't help but notice how much surlier his little brother grew whenever he walked into a room where Merle was keeping an eye on Ari. Once Merle caught him sitting on the first landing while Merle followed Ari out of Andrea's bedroom before she could reach the stairs and Daryl had his head resting between two of the metal bars, looking almost longingly in Ari's direction. When Daryl saw Merle watching he hurried down the stairs and out the door, not to return until sundown.

Merle didn't voice his opinion aloud but it seemed as if Daryl was jealous of the baby for some reason, though he couldn't think of a reason why. What did the baby have that he, Daryl, didn't? What did the baby have that Daryl could even want?

Merle had been sitting with Ari until she fell asleep, throwing his knife into the air and catching it by the blade in a hypnotic fashion well after he heard her soft breathing which meant that he could sneak out. Andrea stood in the doorway, arms resting against the framework as she watched him with a sly grin on her face.

"And just what're you smilin' at?" he asked quietly when he spotted her.

"You," she answered, taking a seat on the floor opposite him. "Two months ago if someone had asked any of us if we thought you'd be caught dead sitting next to a crib with a sleeping baby girl inside of it, we'd have said that the fever of a walker bite must be setting in, yet here you are."

"Only 'cuz y'all dumped me here 'til m'leg heals up which it _has_," said Merle in a subdued fashion, continuing to throw the knife.

"Then why are you still here?" asked Andrea. "No one's ordering you to watch her, Merle. We don't live like that. But you're still sitting right here without anyone having to tell you. That's a big change—for you."

"Yeah, well, don't get used to it," Merle grumbled. "Once I show the old man that I can walk just fine babysittin' duty falls on you'n Jim. I already did my time watchin' a baby and he still ain't growin' up like he was s'posed to."

Andrea cocked her head to one side and sighed. "Have you tried talking to him?"

"No," said Merle shortly. "I washed my hands've 'im the night we buried Lori. We got here just fine with no more casualties, so don't tell me it's hurtin' the group for us to distance ourselves from each other. We're better off like that, always have been. He got on better when I wasn't around. Just the way it is."

"No, that's the way you make it," Andrea corrected. "I think you taught him to not show his emotions and he took that quite literally. That's your problem and since you created it, no one else can fix it."

Merle pointed a gnarled finger at her. "Don't start that with me. I ain't the type've person who changes just 'cuz someone suggested it. I go at my own damn pace and get over things when I choose to. Right now I choose t'drop the subject of Daryl. D'you have a problem with that?"

"No," said Andrea, watching him sadly. "I'm just sorry for you. I never hated you, you know, regardless of what I may have said when we were first starting out. I just hated the way you treated everyone and yourself because I was envious of you who got to keep your brother while I had to leave Amy behind. Every time you took a shot at Dale I jumped down your throat because Dale was the one who took Amy and me in when the breakout spread. Dale was all I had and Daryl was all you had. Now what do you have, Merle?"

_Who the hell knows?_ He had earned the group's trust, that much was clear, but at the price of losing Daryl. Was it worth it? Somehow he didn't completely think so. Some part of him wanted to flat out lie and say that he would have preferred Daryl to any number of human beings, but in all honesty he knew that having everyone else in place of Daryl was already proving to be better for him. He had given up his drugs, his anger had gotten under control, and a most unfamiliar sense of belonging had fallen over him, and not by accident.

But he still felt abandoned by Daryl and Andrea could never understand that. She may have warmed up to him, but she wasn't Daryl. Whatever else she was or could be, she would never take the hollow place that Daryl had carved out of him and left to smolder in the burning ruins of the past.

Merle didn't notice that he had stopped tossing the knife. It sat loosely in his palm, blade catching the afternoon sunlight through the blinds. He looked up and saw that Andrea was much closer to him than she had been before his thoughts swept him away. She was slightly tentative, but she sat forward on her knees, one hand tracing the cut along his cheek that the marauder had left.

"It doesn't look so bad now," she said softly and then planted a very swift kiss on his cheek.

His first thought was to recoil, not out of disgust or discomfort, but confusion. He could not ever remember being touched by a woman this way. He only vaguely remembered his mother and she had been the only woman he could remember standing less than two feet from up until life in the camp in the heart of the quarry. To feel Andrea's cool fingers against the roughness of his skin was something quite unnatural for him and though he did not draw away, he worked to keep his face expressionless. It wasn't weakness to be feeling as he did down in the pit of his stomach, but it wasn't something he was used to. He had to get out now before he said or did something that he might regret. His pre-apocalyptic self was telling him to snap at her and his current self was urging him to flee the room. He compensated by tucking his knife away and murmuring something that sounded like, "I gotta go," as he stood up and hastened out the door.

He breathed clean air on the porch and hugged one of the wooden posts that held up the roof as he tried to forget what had just happened. He knew what that shudder in his stomach meant, but he would not give in to it, not when he swore to himself that he would live his life alone to avoid getting hurt by anyone after everything his dad had put him through. Only that hadn't worked, had it? Daryl wounded him enough to cast him into depression, hadn't he? Merle allowed himself to give a damn about that boy the first time he and Merle locked eyes at the hospital. If nothing else, he was determined to at least make sure that Daryl got a better childhood than Merle had ever had; only that went down the toilet as well.

He made a real mess of things this time. He hated Daryl for putting him in a position to care about someone, but he hated living day to day watching his brother loathe him. He hated Andrea for accepting the baby and bringing about these inner feelings of turmoil, loss, compassion, and whatever the hell else he was capable of feeling, but she had just kissed him which meant that he could not completely blame her until he figured out how he felt regarding her. He hated Jim for causing the break with him and Daryl because of Lori, but Jim had saved them all when he drove up in the station wagon back at the first gas stop. And he hated Dale because the old man with his unblinking brown eyes just pried too much and was annoying as hell. But he didn't hate Ari because everything that had happened for or because of her was not her fault.

"Headache?" asked Dale, joining him on the porch, but choosing to sit on the swinging bench, pushing it back and forth with his heels.

_Oh, for the love of God, old timer, just leave me the hell alone_, thought Merle. What he said was, "Somethin' like that, yeah."

"Well standing up can't be doing it any good. Sit down," Dale offered, patting the bench beside him.

Merle reluctantly sank on to the bench, picking up the swinging rhythm as he rested his elbows on his knees and put his face in his hands. He was very thankful that Dale at least had the decency to shut up for once while he battled with his thoughts…that was until Dale opened his big mouth.

"You talked to Daryl?"

"Oh, not you too," Merle groaned, not opening his eyes. "Just leave it alone, can'tcha? Ain't nothin' t'discuss. He's angry, I'm angry, everybody's happy."

"He's not angry, he's jealous," said Dale, which was enough for Merle to pull his hands away from his face and look the old man in the eye. "He's not angry about what you two fought over at Lori's gravesite anymore. After Jim, after the baby and the men who broke in, he's well over that. But seeing you spend time with that little girl and watch her like you expect someone to snatch her up and run off with her at any moment is something he can't stomach. He wishes that you had been that kind to him, loved him that much."

"I don't _love_ that girl-," Merle began, but Dale snapped his fingers in Merle's face, pointing first to his cheek and then his leg.

"What're those then? No one throws themselves into harm's way like that to protect a baby that they care nothing for. No one stands there fighting off walkers while holding a man trying to commit suicide on his shoulders. Now, I'm not saying you love Jim, but you understand what I'm getting at here, Merle. Some people, perhaps not all, have grown on you and it's your instinct to protect them. You didn't care about Jim when he tried to hang himself, but you knew how it would affect the rest of us and so you stepped in. You may not have cared very much for Ari at the time of the break in, but you cared about what Andrea would say and how she would feel if the baby died and so you acted. It's okay to have those feelings, Merle, that's what they're there for and no human is born without them. I should think you'd be overjoyed to have any feeling at all as opposed to walking around without a soul like the dead."

Dale had a point—several points, actually—but Merle did not want to resolve things with Daryl by his terms. If Daryl really was resentful of Ari because he missed out on attention and love as a child under Merle's care, he still had a lot of growing up to do.

"Look, I don't care if y'tell me things 'bout Jim and Andrea and the baby, but stay the hell outta my brother's business and mine old man," he said coldly.

Dale drew out Merle's knife quicker than Merle would have ever anticipated and put the blade to the side of Merle's neck, right next to the jugular. "I've told you before to stop calling me that, Merle Dixon, and damned if I let you say it again. My name is Dale and I am on your side. I see what you've failed to and that is that you are losing Daryl because of your hot-headedness and inability to pull your head out of your ass. He won't come to you asking forgiveness because out of the two of you, he's the only one who hasn't done anything wrong. Whether or not you resolve things is up to you, but you're not going to take it out on anyone else here and you're going to show respect where it is due. I'm sick of being crushed under your boot as if you think you're better than me. Between the two of us, I'm more human than you can ever hope to be and if that doesn't sink into your head, go out into the woods, find a walker, and let it rip your useless heart out."

Dale buried the knife in the bench between them and left Merle sitting on the still swinging bench, staring avidly at the quivering blade that had been so close to slicing the life right out of him. Merle unstuck the blade and ran his finger along the sharp end.

_Damn_, he thought, mildly impressed.


	16. Chapter 16: Faces in the Semi Darkness

Except on one or two rare occasions, the group mostly ate at separate times for their meals, but Dale and Andrea had put together an actual feast in their eyes with more than just canned vegetables and roasted squirrel and so a gathering at the table was required. Taking two of the rabbits Daryl had caught earlier that day, they stewed the critters in with several seasonings and added steamed vegetables to the mix. Andrea was letting Ari slurp up the broth from a spoon on Merle's right and on his left Jim was in deep conversation with Dale across from him. Opposite Merle sat Daryl picking moodily at his food and it would have been an ideal opportunity to get him to start talking if Merle hadn't had nightmares the night before.

For several nights now he had been plagued by the same recurring horrors and woke up drenched in sweat so that he had to spend the rest of the night with his window thrown open to air out the room. Always the same vision played in his mind like a film that keeps skipping back to the same scene. He would see a woman bending over a crib and inside the crib was an infant, a boy. He supposed the woman was his mom because she never turned around, but when he stepped closer to the crib he saw Daryl as Merle remembered him, skin unscarred, heart even more so. But then there would come a terrible noise from the doorway and Merle would spin around to see his father standing there, shouting obscenities and threats. Merle's dad would stomp forward, arm raised as if to strike and Merle, realizing how tall and intimidating this figure was, would throw up his hands to shield his face before his dad passed right through him and continued on to the crib, except now Andrea stood by it, shielding the baby who had transformed into Ari. Merle's dad would almost be in position to strike Andrea when he would morph into Merle so that he was actually watching himself extend his hand and deliver a blow across Andrea's face. The baby would cry and then as Andrea touched her cheek where an angry red mark appeared, the dream Merle would bite down on her neck and rip out a chunk of her flesh before rounding on the baby.

At this point Merle would quite literally force himself to wake up. He refused to let the image of a walker tearing into Ari enter his mind. After these nightmares he would not be able to fall back asleep, but would lie there on his bed, staring up at the ceiling and wondering if it might calm him to sneak into Andrea's room and watch Ari for a minute or two. Every time he decided against it.

Drained and exhausted by lack of sleep, Merle now sat with his head almost in his bowl of stew, one arm spread out across the table, the other dangling freely. He dozed in and out of sleep as he heard the chink of a fork on a plate or Ari give a giggle. In his subconscious he felt his cheek slipping off the edge of the table, no longer able to cling on by the tiniest sliver of saliva coming out of the corner of his mouth and suddenly as his head slid off the edge, he jerked it back up in an almost violent motion, eyes watering.

All of them, including Ari were looking at him with a mixture of amusement and puzzlement.

"Tired, are you?" said Jim, returning to his fourth helping of stew.

"Hmmm?" said Merle, turning in his direction while trying to bring him into focus. "What?"

"You look awful," said Dale, leaning closer to peer conspicuously at Merle's eyes. "You're not on the drugs again, are you?"

"No…" said Merle slowly, offended. The last thing he wanted to bring up was his nightmares.

"What's keeping you up at night?" asked Andrea, setting Ari's spoon down on the table connected to her high chair.

"Lack've sleep," answered Merle sarcastically, putting his head back down, though resting it on his forearm this time.

"Most likely nightmares," said Daryl from across the way. "With no drugs t'knock 'im out, he's relivin' some pretty nasty stuff I'll bet. Rightly so, 'cuz he's the one who's got plenty t'be ashamed of."

Merle pushed back his chair and threw himself out of it almost as if he had been waiting for Daryl to say something. At the same time, Daryl leapt up, hand clenching around his steak knife. This was it; this was_it_. He had had _enough_. He pounded a fist on the table, upsetting his cup of water which slowly began to trickle across the wood and soak the tablecloth.

"We never finished what we started, son, but we can finish it right now!"

"Bring it, old man!" shouted Daryl before Dale intervened by holding out his arms between the two brothers.

"Come and finish it, y'worthless whinin' bitch!"

"Keep your voices down and knock it off," he said urgently. "This won't solve anything."

"This's how we solve everything, now get outta the way," Daryl snarled as Jim took over and blocked his way to Merle who was trying to get around Andrea without knocking her over.

"Merle, calm down. Let it go," she warned, but he didn't hear her. There was some strange background noise like a buzz of a large crowd conversation, punctured by a high-pitched shriek of some sort, but it made no sense as blood pounded in his ears. He saw the top of Andrea's head and beyond it Daryl trying to dart passed Dale and Jim. Then he felt her hands on his arms and had a strong urge to just throw her bodily aside. She couldn't fix this or prevent it, why couldn't she understand that? He had his fingers on one of her wrists when she suddenly spat a word so venomously at him that he had to look down at her and shout back a very incensed, "_What?_"

Then her hand flew out and smacked him across his healing cheek. It stung, but the action was what brought him to a halt more than the pain. She had acted first, unlike in his dream. Andrea had raised a hand to him before he could strike her. She won.

He brought his hand up to the spot where she had hit him and rubbed it with his palm as she raised her fist in a threatening follow-up gesture.

"The baby's crying," said Jim now that Merle was subdued and sure enough, Merle realized the shrieking he had heard was Ari expressing distress at the fighting and shouting going on around her.

Merle turned around and saw her tearful face looking up at him in fear. One glance into those streaming caramel eyes made Merle feel like the surviving world's biggest asshole, not only because she knew how to manipulate him into feeling guilty, but because he knew better than to raise his voice after hours anyway.

"Hold her," Andrea ordered. "She'll stop crying for you."

Doubting this very much, Merle put his hands around her tiny body just under her armpits and lifted her straight up out of the high-chair. As if by magic, the tears turned off even though she continued to whimper and as Merle held her out to the full length of his arms, he nearly dropped her with what happened next.

A gunshot. Clear, unmistakable, born from a highly accurate rifle. And it came from just outside the front door.

Ari gave a start just like the rest of them but Merle rested her against his side and put a finger to his mouth. "Shh," he said almost inaudibly. This was one of the first things Dale had insisted they teach her, especially with how unpredictable their surroundings were and Merle had to give credit to the old timer; he knew what he was talking about. Just like in play, Ari put her hand on Merle's finger and then her own and made a noise that sounded more like "Sthhhhpftt," but it was close enough.

"Take her," he whispered to Andrea who knew exactly what Merle was talking about and flew up the stairs to place Ari in the small panic room Daryl had found in his closet about three weeks back. It could only be locked from the inside and was equipped with emergency supplies. The five of them had practiced running Ari up from various spots in the house or on the lawn to see how long it would take to get her in and safely tucked away with one of them.

Dale snatched up his rifle from the kitchen table and Jim took a shotgun as well as his bat from their place near the office. Daryl's crossbow was over his arm in a heartbeat and Merle rounded off the preparations by taking out his own rifle from the coat closet and checking his Hi-Power for rounds. The blinds were drawn in all rooms and blankets had additionally been nailed up in some cases. As with all the windows on the first floor, they were boarded from the inside which was a dead giveaway to anyone who happened to be looking in. Whoever it was outside knew they were here and had sacrificed a shot to get their attention even with walkers prowling the area. Maybe they just wanted shelter, maybe they were more marauders, but they certainly were stupid.

With two of them on either side of the door, Daryl called out loudly enough for whoever was outside to hear, "What d'you want?"

"We want to speak with you, that's all," answered a male voice, honeyed with class, but hiding underlying aggression. Merle had heard his type before.

"Then start talkin'," Daryl responded.

"Well, now, isn't it sort or rude for the host to not address his guests?"

"You're trespassin', that rules you out've bein' a guest," answered Daryl.

"A truce? We'll set our weapons on the ground if you come out without any in hand," the voice proposed.

Daryl looked to Dale who shrugged. "I don't know," he said quietly. "There's no way of telling."

"Watch 'em through the peep hole," said Jim. "Tell 'em we're coming out, but keep an eye on 'em until they put their weapons down and have 'em empty their pockets."

"Alright, weapons down," Daryl agreed. "I've got eyes on ya, so put 'em all down and then do a turn-'round so I can see that y'ain't hidin' nothin' in your belts." He pressed his eye to the small scope in the door for a full minute, all the while gesturing to the others about what he saw.

Six fingers meant six people. A stroke of the mustache meant all men. Daryl described them all to be of relatively tall height with a stockier build than Jim. Merle set his rifle aside and the others copied him, but he was not about to give up his pistol after what happened with the intruders and tucked it behind his overshirt where it was easily accessible. Very slowly Daryl cracked the door open, letting candlelight and lantern light spill onto the porch so that their four shadows splayed out long and lanky. The six men were halfway up the path, all with hands held near their chests.

"'Evening," said the one in the middle who was the one who had spoken for them all. "Sure is a nice place you have there. Been hanging around for long?"

"Not too long," said Jim dismissively, cracking one finger at a time against his thumb.

"Four men in one big house," observed a curly haired man to the far right. "What d'you do with all of that space?"

"Just get down t'what is that y'want," said Merle shortly. He wasn't in the mood to stand out in the exposed open having a cozy little chit chat with men whose faces he could not completely see.

"We're just looking for shelter," said the apparent leader. "Food we can get ourselves, but our truck broke down and we don't want to be walking around here in the dark with the uglies bumping around too."

"Might be another place up the road; I suggest you take a look," said Dale, pointing to the left.

"You aren't even courteous enough to discuss some other options?" asked a heavy-lidded man to the leader's immediate right.

"Sorry, but there isn't anything to discuss, not in the world for what it is today," said Dale. "It's just natural instinct now. Trust no one, live longer."

"I'm sorry to hear you feel that way," said the leader and to Merle it sounded like a threat. He could almost see the leader leering at them. This was a very bad idea, no; a downright dumbass idea and they needed to get back inside now.

"Well, best've luck t'you," said Daryl, motioning to Jim to start heading inside when a provocative statement came from one of the six.

"None of you can protect that baby."

Merle went for his pistol, but Daryl had his out first and was raising it to firing height when one of the men let off his own round in Daryl's direction.


	17. Chapter 17: Silence is Essential

Daryl recoiled, smashing down onto the porch and Merle veered in his direction, waiting to see the blood flow. Dale cried out a warning to him and he could barely make out the outline of one of the men taking what looked like a concealed Taurus Model 85 from his sleeve. He had just turned it on Merle when his head gave a brutal backward jerk and he hit the grass in a heap. Not understanding who had fired, Merle drew out his Hi-Power and followed Jim who unearthed his bat from inside the door and took a running leap at one of the men who was trying to gather up his weapon while his companions retreated from the unknown sniper. Jim thwacked his bat against the man's jaw, sending teeth in all directions. Merle stood with his back to Jim, squinting towards the roof and then he saw her. Andrea was leaning out of Merle's window with one of the spare rifles.

"Who'd they shoot at?" she called.

On the porch Daryl was sitting up, holding a fist to his right cheek where the bullet had grazed him. "Son've a bitch," he moaned, pulling his hand away bloody.

Merle breathed an inward sigh of relief, gave Andrea the thumbs up and then turned around just in time to see Jim sit on the man's back and knot his hands together with his belt. The man's face was swelling rapidly from where Jim had introduced it to his bat and he lay moaning, reluctant to move after the first hit.

"What're you doin'?" Merle asked Jim. "What good's he gonna do us by keepin' him alive?"

"Well, my first instinct wasn't to kill him," said Jim, looking appalled at the very idea.

"Well, mine is. We can't use him as leverage 'cuz those scumbags left him and didn't even try t'help him which tells me that they care 'bout as much for each other as the walkers do. We don't have time t'go droppin' him off all over the state with the hope that he won't find his way back here with a vengeance either. Best we can do is put a bullet in his head, though it wouldda saved us time if you'd just smashed his brains in like I thought you were gonna do."

Leaning against Dale for support, Daryl limped onto the path, now just ignoring his wound which had caked the entire side of his face in blood.

"What're we s'posed t'do with him?" he asked, kicking at the bound man with his toe in disgust. "I ain't too keen on givin' him any've our supplies. For all we know, this was the bastard who shot me."

"If we shoot him down in cold blood we're no better than those men," said Dale sagely, though Merle spat on his words of wisdom.

_Those men_ were the ones who pulled the trigger on them first, so they had every right to do away with this piece of human trash at their feet. There was nothing they could do with him and Merle doubted whether he could be persuaded to change his ways and join them. The very idea of letting the marauder anywhere near Andrea and the baby made Merle's insides squirm unpleasantly. Given his way, the man would probably have put a bullet through Ari's skull and then shared Andrea amongst the other men. There was no forgiveness to be spared.

"What's he mean to any've us?" Daryl demanded.

Dale was in the process of responding with what would probably have been a guilt-inducing, albeit invalid point when Merle turned his Hi-Power on the man and let off a round into the base of his brain. Jim stumbled back in alarm and Dale dropped his rifle. Daryl looked impassive.

"What the _hell_ is wrong with you?" cried Jim.

"I don't think there's an answer t'that," Merle replied cooly. He stomped back inside, put his rifle back in the closet, and returned to the dinner table, all of a sudden feeling famished. Foregoing the use of his spoon, he tilted his bowl to his lips and drained the broth in one large gulp, leaving just the hunks of meat and soggy vegetables which he quickly scarfed down with a fork. He was already on his way upstairs when the other three came in from outside, all determinedly avoiding his gaze, not that he minded. He stalked into his room with every intention of slamming the door, but was surprised to find Andrea still there.

"What's wrong?" he asked, seeing the distressed look on her profile.

"You shot him," she replied tonelessly.

"Look, if you're gonna be angry at me, start yellin', but don't sit there with that face."

Andrea's eyes snapped onto him. "I'm not angry, but I'm not saying that what you did was right either. We could have kept him alive and discussed what to do with him and if it came down to it, we could have ended it later, but in the spur of a moment you killed him without consulting anyone else and that's what upset me. If you're so determined to fit in with this group, why do you keep making choices that separate you from us?"

"What exactly was the last choice I made that put me outta favor with you?" Merle demanded.

"Does your cheek still sting?" asked Andrea with a bit of an edge to her voice.

_Daryl. She'n Dale are workin' t'gether t'get me back in the good books with Daryl. Damn it, can't you people just leave me the hell alone?_

"That ain't the point," he said to avoid the subject. "I didn't kill that man on impulse, y'know. I had a reason and it seems pretty valid t'me."

"And what reason is that?" Andrea challenged as if she did not expect him to come up with a good enough excuse.

"Oh, c'mon, y'heard 'em, didn'tcha? They knew that Ari was here, must've been watchin' the house for a few days sizin' us up." When Andrea still had a threateningly raised eyebrow to spare for him, he dropped his gaze and added rather awkwardly, "They threatened the kid."

That certainly caught Andrea off guard, for she opened her mouth to speak, but when no words came out she closed it and swallowed. After a brief moment of painful silence she said, "Well, I guess there's still hope for you."

Merle guessed that that was as good of an apology as he was going to get or give.

Even with a blanket around his shoulders to block out the chilly November wind, Merle was frozen. He sat just outside his room on the roof with his rifle across his lap, scanning the road for signs of the returning marauders. His fingers were stiff around the barrel and his nose had lost all feeling a short while ago. With the added threat of somewhat armed men in the area, they would need to post night guards from now on until the threat was eliminated. Most of the weapons the men were carrying had been left behind, but Merle was positive that they had more somewhere and the thought was enough to keep him wide awake in the dead of night. Several times he saw movement in the woods across the road but it moved too quickly for him to get a good glimpse which ruled out the probability of it being one of the men who could not dart away that quickly. A walker stumbled out onto the road about an hour before sunrise and Merle watched it stagger along idly until it disappeared into the tree line. If he had been closer and without a baby in the mix, he might have chosen to waste a bullet on the corpse, but with five experienced men roaming around, every bullet spent on passing walkers was one less for them to use against the real enemy.

Yawning, he splashed some water from his canteen on his face to bring himself back to full alertness until Jim came out to take over his shift. He thought back to his heated argument with Andrea. In the world for what it was today, his act of killing that man—though Dale, Andrea, and Jim would probably call it murder—was done to protect the others, so why did they think it was so wrong of him? He didn't have time to discuss his plan with anyone else when most of them were so keen on letting the bastard live, drinking their water, eating their food supply, and taking precious time away as they kept an eye on him. The prowlers would never have shown any of them such mercy, Merle was damn sure of it. And yet everyone but Daryl thought that _he_ was the one who had lost his grip on humanity. He was the only one with the guts to do it besides Daryl and if they had waited for a while before deciding in the end that the man was not worth keeping around, perhaps Daryl would have gone soft and been unable to shoot him. Who would have had to put a bullet in the raider's head then? Merle. He only sped up the process and saved them time and supplies.

_They'll see one way or another_, he thought miserably to himself. _At some point they've gotta see it from my perspective_. He didn't know how many more rows he could take until that time, though.

Jim relieved him when the sun had cleared the treetops and Merle flumped onto his bed face first. It seemed like seconds later that he was being shaken awake by Dale, though he tried to swat the older man away.

"Get up, _get up_, you idiot!" shouted Dale, smacking him across the head with something hard and flat.

"Ouch! All right, I'm up, get off've me!" said Merle, rubbing the top of his head gingerly as he looked at the textbook in Dale's hands. "What's goin on?"

"We heard gunshots in the woods behind us and they sounded close," said Dale, looking worried. "Ari's in the panic room and the others are at the windows at the back of the house. Either those men are hunting or showing off their strength of weapons to intimidate us."

"How long's this been goin' on?" Merle asked him.

"First shots were about two minutes ago."

Merle was at his station a few seconds later, pulling back the blanket slightly to the kitchen window as he sat on the counter, halfway in the sink to watch the woods behind them. As an added security he sent Andrea to the front of the house just in case the raiders were trying to distract them with meaningless noise from behind while someone snuck up on them from the front. There was nothing to see in the vast exposure of greenery but falling leaves and the occasional bird, but every few minutes or so they would hear a gunshot which told Merle that the marauders might actually be intelligent in addition to being well supplied. If it really was them making the noise, they clearly had more ammunition than Merle originally thought, which mean they had plenty to spare. Also, if they were so intent on shooting just to remind Merle and the others that they were a force to be reckoned with, they were probably smart enough to realize that they were reeling in walkers from all around to their location which would eventually lead the undead bodies straight to the house.

A shiver went down his spine and just to reassure himself he glanced behind him to make sure that nothing was there that shouldn't be. He returned his gaze to the trees and saw the first walker emerge. Another followed and Merle counted each one, his heart sinking lower and lower with every tally. Finally, at twenty they stopped coming, but the damage was done and now the very house that had offered protection for them for so many weeks was now a death trap.

If the walkers didn't move on, they could never get out to hunt or gather more supplies, but there was always that hope that the reanimated corpses would lumber off to find food. For now, however they all had to be as quiet as possible and just wait to see what would happen next. Merle hopped off the sink and met Jim in the living room. They were joined shortly by the other three who all had very grim expressions on their faces.

"I guess the plan is to just wait them out and hope that they move on, right?" said Dale quietly.

"S'long as no one makes much noise, they should move out in a few hours, a day at the most," said Daryl and Merle saw that his cheek had been covered in white bandages taped all over his skin.

"And if they don't clear out?" said Jim forebodingly.

"Then we give 'em somethin' t'chase," said Merle, resigned for the worst. "But that won't happen if we maintain an agreed level've silence, huh?"

Andrea stared Merle in the eye for a good ten second before he caught on to her message. They all knew how imperative it was to remain quiet for an extended period of time, but it was going to be difficult conveying that fact to Ari.


	18. Chapter 18: Set Free the Bonds

Ari, it turned out, had been up most of the night in a fit of restlessness and spent the majority of the day napping in the panic room whenever Andrea went to check on her. Thank God for small favors. Since waltzing out the front door to go search for woodland creatures was now stripped from his daily routine, Daryl spent his time moving from window to window peeking at the walkers through the blinds with his crossbow always over his shoulder. There was not much to be done inside and even the act of sitting atop the roof in front of Merle's room was out of the question, which meant that they were confined to their new prison with tempers already unstable from the night before.

They rotated stations, took a break individually for lunch, used the restroom, and returned to their posts in an endless pattern. Merle quickly grew bored and had to contain his anger when he reminded himself that going outside to let out steam was not an option. Patrolling the house, peering out of windows, and trying his best to spot the marauders, he was quickly losing his grip on sanity and fell back on his old standby of pillow biting.

At sundown the walkers were showing no signs of moving on and Merle was not looking forward to spending the night listening to the moans of the dead just outside his window. He stuck his face fully in the shower to try and bring himself around into alertness, but when that didn't work he stepped fully clothed under the showerhead and left it on cold for ten minutes until he was absolutely soaked. Andrea walked in on him sitting on the floor next to the tub with a large puddle spreading out in all directions. She had Ari on her hip who stretched out her arms for Merle, but Andrea was not about to let Merle take her when he was drenched to the bone.

"_Why_ do I always find you making a mess in this room?" she asked accusingly.

With an indifferent shrug Merle replied, "Just lucky, I guess."

Andrea set Ari down who presently waddled over to him with every intention of climbing up into his lap but he raised his voice and said in a tone he had never had to use with her before, "No." Ari's face broke out into one of shock and then either fear or sorrow, he couldn't tell which. She backed up into Andrea who knelt down to comfort her while giving Merle a shake of her head.

"It's not her fault, whatever has your nether regions in a knot this time."

"I want out," said Merle desperately. "That sound've them just _moanin'_ out there is just makin' me wanna put a bullet in m'mouth. I hate it."

"Then sleep in here tonight, but don't take it out on anyone in the house. The walkers will clear out soon enough."

"Y'really believe that?" asked Merle doubtfully.

"If no one else in the house does, I have to."

Andrea believed in blind faith because by the next morning the walkers were still meandering around on the lawn. Merle swore so loudly that everyone hissed a collective "Shut up" at him as they waited in bated breath to see if the walkers had heard. Even more difficult than keeping Ari quiet was keeping themselves from killing each other out of sheer boredom. Jim had taken apart the desk in his room and put it back together eight times in two days and was now finding other things to tear down and reassemble. Merle wanted to shout at him to stop because it made him nervous, but if it kept Jim out of his way, so be it. Day waned into night which broke into dawn and the cycle repeated five days before six of the walkers started moving on. By then Merle had reduced his pillow to tatters and had to steal one of Dale's, but when he saw the remaining walkers he headed straight for the closet and put on his harness.

"And just what do you think you're doing?" asked Andrea from the landing above as he slipped his bat into its holster.

"Only thirteen walkers left; shouldn't be a problem," he said dismissively as he loaded a magazine and stuffed it into his pocket.

"You can't take on thirteen alone," she protested.

"Y'wanna help?" he snapped at her.

"It's not just the walkers that are out there, Merle," Andrea reminded him. "We don't know where those men are and if you go out there swinging away and raising hell on the corpses the living enemy could take you out with a shot right through your forehead."

"We need supplies, Andrea. We're low on food, we need more gauze and medical shit for Daryl's cut, and we're gonna die if we sit 'round much longer waitin' for them walkers t'get the hell outta here! While I'm clearin' out the lawn, y'all can store anything important in the panic room, take the kid, get in the car, and then we'll all go down the road t'the first unraided place we find. Y'can be damn sure that if those marauders went ahead've us that they're not expectin' us t'come and if they're outside, they'll wait 'til we're gone t'ransack the house. Who cares where they are at this point?"

"You go out there and you'll get your face blown off," said Andrea stubbornly.

"Y'stay in here and you'll watch your face sink in from malnutrition," he retorted, preparing his rifle. Beside him Daryl appeared from the powder room and was loading a bolt into his crossbow while stuffing a hammer into his belt.

"Try'n use strength b'fore shots," he said to Merle without looking at him. "We gotta save the bullets for those bastards, wherever they are." With the bandage taped to most of the right side of his face, it was difficult to read his expression, but Merle knew by his tone that he had had enough of the walkers as well. They ignored Andrea's dire warnings and strode right out into broad daylight, bludgeoning weapons ready. Daryl knocked his hammer into the nearest walker's skull and it went down before any of the others realized that there were two highly edible humans amongst them. Merle did double taps on all of the walkers he put down, taking out frustration, pent up anger, and every other negative emotion he was feeling on the damned. The last walker was by the mailbox, limping on a clearly broken leg towards him and Merle made a few practice swings with his bat before he knocked out at least sixteen teeth in one good strike and continued hitting the skull long after it had caved in and spilt out rotting brains.

All too soon he felt a hand grab him by the elbow and tried to shake it off, but Daryl said with a raised voice, "That's enough, damn it! It's dead again, now let's get the hell outta here and restock."

Merle smashed the bat down one more time and then trudged back up to the sidewalk, dragging the tip of the bat in the grass to clean it off as Daryl brought the station wagon around for Andrea, Dale, and Jim to pile into while Merle rolled his bike out of the garage. Luckily for them all, the men hadn't lingered to slash their tires. Dale informed him that anything worth protecting was hidden away as he cranked down the car's window and Merle saw Ari hanging from a baby carrier on Andrea's back as he kicked back his stand and led the way down the road.

They had cleared out the first two stops down the road and so they had to drive a further ten miles passed the auto repair shop that still held Ari's dead parents who by now were probably just decomposing flesh. The produce store that they had in mind could hold them over for a few more days until they assessed their situation and tried to figure out what had become of their opponents. Merle brought his bike to a halt right up alongside the station wagon as the other four climbed out and looked cautiously around. Daryl scouted around the perimeter of the store for walkers and humans alike, but found nothing and reported back to them with the news.

"But they could be in the trees," Andrea protested, reaching back to feel Ari as if to reassure herself that the baby was still there. "We're too exposed; I don't like this at all. Please, let's just go."

Jim rotated in a circle, bat at his side and he threw out his arms to stress the emptiness around them. "Nothing," he said plainly. "There's not a damn thing here-,"

He stumbled forward and a few short, agonizing seconds later Merle heard the rifle report. Blood spouted out of a wound right above Jim's heart and he stared down in utter disbelief and confusion at his chest.

"Oh…" he managed to say before his knees gave way and he crumpled into a heap on the road. Daryl threw himself in front of Andrea and the baby while Merle put his rifle to his eye, scoping out the scene in front of him as he backed up heel to toe. Dale had dropped his rake and dragged Jim behind an awkwardly parked Sedan where he went to one knee and began pressing down to stop the blood stemming out in all directions from Jim's chest. Andrea poured a considerable amount of water from her canteen over the wound to clean it and then put her hands on top of Dale's. As she added her weight Jim coughed up blood all down his chin, head resting on Andrea's lap. His face was turned off to the side to avoid looking at his wound but his legs were kicking madly and his fingernails were clenched so tightly that more blood was trickling out of punctures in his skin.

Merle kept his head low, scanning the horizon for any sign of the sniper. He didn't know where the bastard was, but he knew that the culprit was from the raider team and that he, Merle, was responsible for everything that would happen here on out.

Jim's lower body gave an awful convulsion and he sobbed into Andrea's jeans, soaking them with blood and tears.

"Help," said Andrea without taking her eyes from him. She spoke as calmly as she could through a trembling voice, comforting Jim and also Ari who was panicking in the baby carrier.

Daryl didn't move, gawking at Jim with an incomprehensible look on his bandaged features. Merle set his rifle down, clamping his hands over Andrea's as she said to Jim, "You're going to be just fine."

"Keep your eyes on me, son," said Dale, moving Jim's damp bangs out of his face.

Almost as if they had planned it, Merle and Daryl caught each other's eyes. They could accept facts much quicker than the other two. They knew what the outcome would be. Daryl picked up Merle's rifle and leaned against the car door, face screwed up in emotional pain as he finally tore his gaze away. Merle saw the horror on Dale's old complexion matched with the utter terror on Andrea's even as she whispered words of comfort to Jim whose body now seemed to be twitching involuntarily.

"Stay with us, Jim," she pleaded, but Merle squeezed her hand and shook his head when she looked him in the face. This reduced her to tears and she bit down hard on her lip to avoid letting a sob escape. She stroked Jim's hair with one red-stained hand, though Merle doubted that he could even feel it at this point. Jim's eyes were already going misty and he felt clammy to the touch, but Merle and Dale both kept their hands over the wound. Dale said nothing, watching.

Jim went in less than a minute. His body made a few final weak movements and his eyes stopped quivering, half open and staring at nothing. Andrea pressed her thumbs down over his eyelids and set his head on the ground before bringing her knees up to her chin and weeping openly into them.

Merle heard only the soft cry of the baby, a high pitched lonesome sound in the vast sea of emotions screaming out inside his head.

**Just curious—who do you think is going to make it at this point? Drop me a line/review with your thoughts. I love reading your input, ideas, and predictions!**


	19. Chapter 19: Fire and Arrows

"Can't make it back t'the car," said Daryl, poking his head around the side of the Sedan to measure the distance between them and their transportation. "Dunno where those bastards are either, so that means we gotta find out. I'll create a distraction and Merle will figure out where the shots come from when they fire at me-,"

"No," said Merle. "After what just happened t'Jim, are y'fuckin' nuts? I'll go-,"

"Like hell you will," said Andrea, fastening her hand around Merle's wrist more as a precautionary move than anything else. "There's only two places for them to be hiding; in the store or in the woods and given that the bullet went—went through Jim at a downward angle, that leaves us to consider the roof. The sniper's on top of the store, so that's one down."

Merle didn't know when or how Andrea became the sniper expert, but after glancing briefly down at Jim, he knew she was right. The bullet had gone in through his back pointed downward and exited his front lower than it had entered.

"He's on the damn roof," repeated Dale in a hushed voice as if the sniper could hear them.

"Well, we'll just have t'give 'im too much t'shoot at t'decide," said Merle. "Andrea, give Dale the kid. He'n Daryl are gonna make a break for that maze've cars 'round the backside've the store. Dale, stay low, keep your arms over her, and hide out in there 'til I come t'get ya. Daryl, make some noise, draw their attention away from me'n Andrea 'cuz we're gonna be goin' in the opposite direction."

"There's four men unaccounted for though," said Dale with nervous sweat clinging to his beard. "What if they're _in_ the cars?"

"Naw, they'd be inside the store f'sure," said Daryl with confidence. "They prob'ly ransacked the place, picked it clean, and now are waitin' for their buddy on the roof t'give 'em the all-clear. Once you'n me get t'the cars, I'll try t'find a way in just t'double check."

"Andrea, give the baby t'Dale," said Merle, but Andrea was still hugging her knees, blinking at Jim's body which was already a sickly shade of gray. Merle nudged her with his knuckle. "_An-drea_," he said pressingly.

She came to with a shake of her head and slid the baby carrier off, reattaching it to Dale's front. Ari looked positively frightened, but she had gone quiet and now considered them all. Merle tore his gaze away as Andrea gave Dale her rendition of a threat.

"If anything happens to her, you'll be sorry Dale Horvath."

"Ouch," said Merle unhelpfully. "Will y'just focus for the moment please? We're gonna have t'sprint out t'the jumble've cars on this side've the store and camp out 'til we know that the sniper's not watchin'."

"This is the stupidest plan I have ever heard of," said Andrea spitefully and Merle brought his palm up to his face, praying for patience with her.

"I'm all ears if you've got somethin' better in mind."

"I don't," Andrea admitted.

"Okay then, now shut up."

Daryl and Dale crouched low, preparing themselves for their sprint when Andrea suddenly startled them all by giving an exclamation of enlightenment. Merle closed his hand over her mouth. "Shhh, are y'outta your damn mind? Whatchoo wanna go 'round screamin' for?"

"I've just had an idea," said Andrea, pushing Merle's hand aside. "If we get some oil or gas near the store, we could set the place on fire and draw them out if they really are in there."

The other two looked convinced, but Merle wasn't buying it. "We'd still have t'get close t'the store and I'm lookin' t'get shot anytime soon, so unless you've got a way've getting' us over there, that plan's goin' straight down the drain."

Andrea shot him a meaningful look. "I have matches in my pack. We could pop open your tank and trail out the gas behind us as we drive the bike straight into the store, bail at the last possible moment, and then light the trail on fire. The whole store blows sky high."

Merle stuck his little finger in his ear to clear out any ear wax he may have had. "Sorry, I thought y'just suggested me blowin' up my bike."

Andrea, Daryl, and Dale all stared at him.

"Son've a _bitch_, y'aren't serious, are you? Damn it, Andrea, that's _mine_! Go find some other vehicle t'ram into the door, but not _my_ motorcycle! I spent years workin' on her and years payin' her off. She's one've two things from home I've got left."

"I'm not forcing you," she said with a hard glower. "It's completely up to you; it was just another option as opposed to running around hoping that the sniper doesn't lock onto us."

Merle's brain played tug of war with his heart where he had an emotional attachment to his motorcycle as something from the sane, living world before the apocalypse. How could they expect him to give it up in the hopes that it would help them? The bike held some small bit of his sanity and connection to the life he knew—and hated. If he had to choose between keeping his brother or his bike, he would have to take Daryl.

"I'll hate you forever for this," he promised Andrea.

"Good," she said distractedly. "I'll cover you on the back of the bike and you give me the signal when to jump off, okay? Daryl, try to draw the sniper's fire for as long as you can so that Merle and I can get close enough."

"Right," said Daryl, crossbow ready. Dale folded his arms over his chest, completely blocking Ari from view.

"Be careful," said Andrea imploringly, squeezing Dale's hand. The older man squeezed back with an anxious smile.

Daryl turned unintentionally and Merle forced eye contact with him. Merle didn't know what else to do but nod and though he didn't return the gesture, Daryl said, "I'll see y'all after."

On opposite ends of the car, the four of them prepared themselves, counting down in their heads. As one they sprinted out from behind the Sedan and ran for their destinations. Merle outstripped Andrea easily and skidded to a halt beside his bike. He screwed the gas cap off, tipped it slightly sideways, and watched some gas spill out. Then he swung one leg over the side of his motorcycle, kicking the stand back in and revving the engine to life with a giant mechanical rumble just as Andrea reached him. She drew out her Ladysmith while throwing one arm around Merle's waist. He took that as the okay to hit it and bent low over the handlebars as the motorcycle shot forward. Somewhere to his left and forward he heard gunshots, but had no time to spare a thought for them. The distance between them and the store window was closing fast and he felt a thrill of exciting terror as his reflection grew in the glass pane. He took his hand off of the handle and reaching back, touched Andrea's leg as a signal that it was time to bail. Her hand left his waist and he threw himself sideways, rolling to a stop with his elbow burning where the pavement had torn it open. He saw his beloved bike smash into the window and Andrea was striking a match and lowering it to the gas trail. Merle turned away; it was far too painful to watch.

He took Andrea's hand and practically dragged her the distance to the jumble of cars as the sounds of explosion from behind them threw out a giant heat wave at their backs. Merle pushed Andrea underneath a pickup truck but whirled back around in time to one man come staggering out of the store, his pant leg ablaze. The sniper atop the roof was standing and desperately trying to find a way down before the entire building went up in flames. Since the sniper was preoccupied, Merle took a chance and aimed his rifle at the man dancing around trying to put out the fire burning away his leg. He knew the gunshot would give him away and sincerely hoped that Daryl was taking advantage of the situation as he put the scope to his eye and put the raider's head into focus. He fired off a round and opened his left eye just in time to see the sniper jump from the rooftop, landing painfully on both legs. The marauder had just brought them up to his chest, howling in pain when Daryl overtook him and shot him straight through the nose with his crossbow.

Merle rolled underneath the truck beside Andrea and held up two fingers. Two down, three to go.

His legs were falling asleep from lack of movement, but he feared to roll out from under the truck and get some circulation going. He still had no idea where the other three marauders were and wasn't about to go sneaking around looking for them. He had seen Daryl and Dale disappear into the junkyard of abandoned cars, but had been no sign of them since. At his side Andrea's head was resting on her crossed arms as she lay on her stomach. She, more than anyone had been traumatized the most by the events in the last few hours. First Jim, then Ari and Dale, and if anything else happened, Merle wasn't sure that she could recover. He needed her focused because she was a damn good shot when she had her head wrapped around the subject at hand, but the smallest inkling of fear could throw all of her concentration into jeopardy.

He touched her arm and she jerked awake, reaching instinctively for her pistol, but he calmed her and put a cautionary hand on her weapon.

"Jumpy, ain'tcha?" he said mildly in a whisper.

"How long was I out?" she asked, rubbing at her eyes.

"Maybe an hour. No sign've movement anywhere."

"What about Daryl and Dale?"

"Nothin'." Merle saw the concern etched into her features and against his better judgment pushed a stray strand of hair behind her ear as the best form of comfort he could think of. "They'll be fine. S'long as Daryl's with the kid nothin's gonna happen."

Andrea looked as if she was going to believe him when suddenly Merle heard a heavy thump from behind them. He tried to flip onto his side and turn, but something grabbed him around the ankles, dragging him so rapidly and harshly backwards that he struck his chin on the pavement and felt the skin break open. Andrea reached out to grab him, but she couldn't hold on as Merle slid away. He threw himself onto his back and squinted up into the burnt, sizzling face of one of the marauders. Merle crossed his arms to protect himself as the marauder drove a knife straight down towards his face. Kicking out hard with both legs, he threw the bastard a good ten feet and went for his own knife when he saw that a second raider had taken hold of Andrea's legs and was now yanking her out from underneath the truck. Merle leaped to his feet, fingers clenched around the knife handle and rugby tackled the attacker just as he was trying to flip Andrea the other way. Merle's knife went straight into the man's right lung and the latter suddenly gasped as if the wind had been beaten straight out of his body. Merle held his gaze for a full two seconds before yanking the blade out and stabbing it once more into him, this time striking the throat.

Andrea let out a shrill sound as the first marauder threw himself onto her and backhanded her. She clawed at his face, raking her nails along one deformed cheek and then his knife came down in her upper shoulder. She cried out in pain, beating at him with her remaining fighting arm. The marauder struck her again across the face with his fist and she didn't fight back this time as her head flopped onto the pavement. Merle started out on all fours, pushing up with his palms to get himself into a standing position and then sent his knee straight up into the man's face.

"Keep your hands off've her, y'little motherfucker!" he roared, advancing on his fallen opponent. The raider looked dazed, but as Merle bore down on him he regained his composure faster than anyone could have anticipated and kicked Merle's kneecap, sending him doubling over in pain. Merle felt a thick arm come from under his armpit and snake around his neck to press down on the back of his head at the same time that the cold feel of metal already stained with warm blood touched his neck.

"Make a move and I'll open his throat right now!" Merle's adversary threatened.

Trying hard to not swallow with the knife tickling his jugular, Merle saw Daryl aiming his crossbow straight at the marauder. Dale stood behind him with a crowbar in one hand and Ari's head cradled in the other. Daryl had his sights along the crossbow, one eye glaring at the raider.

"Let 'im go now or I'll put a bolt right through your fuckin' face," Daryl warned.

The marauder gave Merle a shake and then his weight shifted. "Go ahead; you'll have to shoot through his face to get to mine, though."

The bastard was using Merle as a human shield. Daryl was the best shot with a crossbow Merle had ever seen and he could position an arrow anywhere. The best chance he had of taking the marauder out was to aim for a non vital organ. Knowing how much pain he was in for, Merle locked eyes with Daryl, willing him to understand. He shifted his eyes down and to the left three times, one hand keeping the marauder from throttling him while the other very slowly rested against his side. Daryl's head came down a fraction of an inch and Merle exhaled.

The arrow flew, cutting through the air and burrowing straight through Merle's left hip, penetrating the man behind him who cursed and shouted his pain. Merle felt the grip on the man's knife slacken and twisted his wrist so that the fingers released the handle. He caught it and drove it straight back repeatedly until the marauder went limp and collapsed, bringing Merle down with him since the arrow connected them to each other. Merle lay still, afraid to move in case the arrow touched something it shouldn't.

Daryl appeared above him and gently put him on his right side. First he pulled the marauder loose and then put his hand on the bolt where it had entered Merle's hip. He gave one quick tug and the entire thing came free, slick with Merle's blood.

"Good—shot," said Merle, holding his side and feeling hot ooze trickle onto his fingers. He could see Dale examining Andrea's face and shoulder wound. She was conscious, but only halfway. As Dale helped her to sit up Merle looked past them, towards the road and cursed the world as it vomited walkers right in their general direction.


	20. Chapter 20: At Fault

It was the smoke billowing up from the smoldering store wreck that had drawn the walkers in. The smoke had been casting out a signal into the sky for almost four and a half hours and every walker within a five mile radius would have seen and come to investigate. They came from the east end of the road and the west, from the woods behind them and the field across from them.

"Holy _shit_," whispered Daryl.

"Towards the field," said Dale, sharing a look with Daryl who nodded bravely. Merle knew what was happening a few seconds before it did and hoisted Andrea up by the waist, feeling his wound pain double with every movement. She clung to his shirt with one hand so that she wouldn't fall over and while her head was turned the other way, Daryl and Dale ran, raising hell and noise for all of the east coast to hear. They were flat out sprinting towards their previous hiding place between the store ruins and the field, hoping to draw the walkers away from Merle and Andrea in time for them to seek shelter.

"No…" said Andrea groggily, straining to see Dale. "No, Dale, come back—come back!"

"Andrea, y'gotta keep quiet," said Merle pressingly. "They're tryin' t'give us a chance 'cuz we're the ones who're wounded. C'mon, now-,"

"Dale!" cried Andrea, splaying her fingers out towards her friend. She was squirming too much for Merle to hold her properly in his condition and even though he hated himself for doing it, he resorted to pinching her injured shoulder in his hand so that her body bent in submission. He started backing up towards a car with extremely tinted windows, thinking that if he could throw her inside and shut the door quickly enough, the walkers would pass them by without ever knowing they were there.

But he didn't anticipate what happened next.

Daryl slid across the hood of an old Nissan Maxima, dodging every which way to avoid smashing into another car and Dale was trailing him with his strange little hobble when a figure rose from the middle of the maze. The man had a sawed-off shotgun which he pointed straight at Dale.

"NO!" Andrea screamed.

Dale disappeared, dropping down somewhere between the cars so that neither Merle nor Andrea could see him. The final opponent fired twice, but apparently his weapon was dry after that because he threw it aside, livid in the face, and switched to his pistol. He aimed again but almost immediately let out a long stream of swearwords as Daryl appeared and chucked some inanimate object at him, catching him in the back of the head. Daryl ducked out of sight and Dale reappeared, scrambling to put some distance between him and the last crazed raider. A gunshot sounded and Dale went down.

Merle waited, heart frozen at the base of his throat, but Dale did not get back up.

"YOU MOTHERFUCKER, NO!" Andrea was fighting Merle with every ounce of strength she still possessed, clawing, kicking, and even resorting to trying to bite his fingers as he held fast to her. "DALE! _DALE!_"

"Andrea, y'gotta leave 'im," said Merle in a strangled voice. The realization had hit him like an anvil over the head and a brass-knuckled punch to the gut; Dale had Ari and if he had gone down with walkers closing in…

"Let go of me! Let _go_, you bastard! Get your fucking hands off of me! Get off, you son of a bitch, get off!"

Merle twirled Andrea around and grabbed her face, pressing hard with all of his fingers so that he was certain that he was hurting her. He shook her head, now screaming in turn as he watched the tears cascade down her pale cheeks. "You-have-to-let-them-_go_-damn-it!"

There were more gunshots coming from the opposite car maze, but Andrea's head blocked Merle's view. If he was honest with himself he believed that he heard Daryl's handgun give a few reports and prayed that the cowardly, lowly piece of shit who had shot Dale was still alive when the walkers descended upon him.

_If she's still alive, get to her, Daryl_.

Andrea had gone strangely limp in his arms and he released her face, lifting her bodily and stuffing her into the tinted window car before collapsing in the seat beside her and pulling the door shut. He stripped off his overshirt and made as best of a tourniquet out of it as he could to secure around his waist. When Andrea heard the slam as the door locked into place, she seemed to regain her senses and tried to escape out the other side, but luckily it was locked and she was not thinking straight, so Merle was able to climb over and hold her down. He tried to lay flat so that the walkers would see absolutely no movement if they peered in, but with all the racket Andrea was making, he didn't think it would do much good. He wrapped his right hand around her mouth and felt a tear or two roll over his fingers.

"Shhh…" he said softly, trying not to squish her as he kept absolutely still, holding her against him in the confined space. There were still shouts and gunshots outside, but now he could hear fumbled steps and mindless groaning.

Andrea's sobs were silent but she was still breathing raggedly as despair clung to her throat and made it difficult to gain control of herself. Merle smelled the blood from her wound and at the same time felt the blood trickling out of his own, most likely staining Andrea's shirt as she lay beside him. After he felt that it was safe to remove his hand from her mouth he was surprised when she interlocked her fingers with his and held it against her cheek, biting down on her lip to avoid letting out a sound.

_My-fuckin'-fault_…

He insisted on scavenging for supplies, on leaving the safety of the house because being cooped up had thrown his wits and senses into the limbo. His rash decision making had led Jim straight into the path of the bullet, had exposed Dale to the final attacker, had most likely given Ari over to ravaging cannibalistic monsters. He would have to live with that. Everything he had done to be accepted, to be respected came back around and bit him in the ass because just like with Daryl, whenever he had allowed himself to care, to—dare he use the word—love, everything went to shit and crumbled around him. He just could not let his feelings enter the mix without consequences. It was not his attitude that had kept him from reaching out to others all these years; it was just him. He was cursed, unable to put faith in anything or anyone because luck was rarely with him and whenever it was, it quickly turned wry just to spite him and make life even more of a living hell. _He_ had killed Jim and Dale and…

Ari.

A baby, a child—his. She had loved him more than she had anyone else in the household and despite his very best efforts to prevent it, she had grown on him. He looked after her as he had never done with Daryl because, given the circumstances, she really was his. If he had shown her a picture of her real parents, he doubted that she would even remember. Every morning it had been Andrea's face she saw, not her mother's. It was Merle who scolded her or held her in the crook of his arm, not her father. Merle and Andrea were the closest thing to parents she would ever have and now she had neither of them. Merle had killed her and he was now cowering inside a car as walkers were most likely—he couldn't even fathom the notion. He would not allow the thought to enter his head.

He sat up. If there was any chance at all for the girl, he would act on it. Even if it meant bursting out of the car and trampling through, over, or around walkers to get to her, even if it meant entering the danger zone of the unaccounted for marauder, he would get to her. But if he wanted to stand even a small chance of accomplishing this, he would have to bite back the pain in his side and all the odds were against him on this one. He had lost blood and his best projectile weapon. He was one, weak human against a small army of walkers that felt no pain. He stood no chance at all.

Unless…

The station wagon was right where they had left it, the keys in the ignition, the driver door wide open. He might just make it, but once he did, he would have no choice but to come back for Andrea, provided that she had enough sense to stay put while he went to fetch the cavalry. One look at her face told him that it was not getting her to stay that would be the problem but getting her to leave the car once he pulled up in the wagon. She was in shock and needed a strong, firm hand to guide right now. That had been Dale's job which was now permanently passed on to Merle.

"I've gotta go," he whispered.

Andrea did not let go of his hand as she dabbed at her eyes with the back of her wrist. "What?"

"I'm gonna get t'the station wagon, bring it 'round, and then crash through that wreckage of cars t'find—t'find whatever there is left t'find. If she's still alive, I'll get her."

"You won't be able to get through the walkers," said Andrea, sitting up beside him, still clasping his hand in a grip that was steadily becoming more and more painful. "There are at least twenty of them around us right now and God knows how many out on the rest of the lot. You'll never make it."

"But it's me," said Merle pointedly. "All this is my fault, Andrea, and damned if I don't do a fuckin' thing 'bout it. I'll get t'the car, don't worry. You just be ready t'jump in when I pull up."

"You crazy bastard, you're such a stupid asshole," said Andrea, angry patches appearing on her white face. "You are not invincible, Merle Dixon. You've tried your luck one too many times and it can't hold out forever. You will not make it, which will leave me and Daryl if he's still alive. Don't make me go back to the house alone. I can't do it, do you hear me? Amy was hard enough to let go and I will _never_ heal from that, but if you do this to me again I swear I will never forgive you."

"Y'already have 'nough shit t'blame me for. Y'wouldda been better off if I'dda kept drivin' on my bike and never looked back, but I stuck with ya and now everyone's payin' for it in blood. 'M'sorry, Andrea, but if this is all I can do, then just let me fuckin' do it."

"Merle," Andrea grasped his hand with both of hers, cutting off his circulation in a vice-like grip, but this was in desperation. She was begging now. "Please, Merle, _please_ stay here. I can't…"

"I can do this," he told her confidently. "I'm a Dixon; it's my lot in life t'have t'wallow in my grief and guilt. I can't be let off the hook that easily. Let go've my hand."

Andrea's fingers seemed unwilling to comply at first but then they slipped free from his and there was almost no contrast in the color, or lack thereof, in their skin. Merle pulled the bat out of its harness, wincing as his wound stretched underneath the tourniquet. He held it in his right hand, left resting on the door handle. The nearest walker was ten feet away and he could see a clear path through them. All he needed to do was ignore the corpses and make a b-line for the wagon. He may not even have to use the bat at all.

He turned back to Andrea. "Wish me luck, huh?"

She leaned over, grasping his face in her hands and planted a tear-soaked kiss on his lips, holding the position for nearly four whole seconds before breaking off and cocking her Ladysmith.

If that wasn't a worthy candidate for wishing someone good luck, Merle didn't know what was. He winked at her and threw the door wide open.

**I'm interested to hear what your thoughts are at this point. **


	21. Chapter 21: Unsettled Stalemate

He face-planted on the concrete, smashing up his nose in addition to the already existing cut across his chin. He had tripped over his own clumsy feet and completely lost the element of surprise. Scuttling back into a standing position, he spat out the blood from his nose that had run into his mouth and looked around wildly for the station wagon. His bat was swinging at his side but he rested it across his right shoulder, preparing a wind-up as the walker closest to him gravitated inward, starting the long procession of walkers that came towards him as if he were a human magnet. The scent of fresh blood on the air probably didn't help him at all, but he had to ignore that at the moment. The mouth, the nose, and one eye completely caved in when Merle struck the bat into the walker's ugly mug, but as he finished the swing he gave a loud cry of pain and nearly dropped his only close quarters weapon.

"What are you waiting for, you dumbass?" called Andrea from inside the car. "_Run_!"

Run…right…

He tried, found the sensation to be well beyond painful, and thought, _Screw it_. He turned his back to the car, almost jogging backwards so that he could keep an eye on the walkers closing in on him. There were two walkers close to the wagon, but he wasn't worried about them. The fifteen walkers on his ass were the real problem and he had to keep them occupied so that they wouldn't go for Andrea who was hanging out of the tinted car like a complete idiot.

"Get that ass outta sight unless y'want it bitten off!" he hollered, poking a walker in the face with as much ferocity as a vicious pool table jab which was all his wound could stand at this point. Once he was sure that the walkers behind weren't going to catch up, he faced the two by the station wagon, dodging the one on the passenger side and approaching the one blocking the driver's seat. It opened up a set of atrocious jaws and a forked tongue—how that had happened, Merle didn't even want to guess—and moved in. Merle, however, gave it a healthy thwack across the forehead with his bat and a mutter of, "Get the hell out've my way." He closed his door, gripping the wheel in stained hands for a moment and staring at his beaten reflection in the rear view mirror. It was definitely him staring back with the bruises, the swelling, and the blood, but the eyes, _his_ eyes had changed. Still faded blue, unremarkable, hard, cold, Merle-esque, but there was something more there, or perhaps a lack of something else that had been negative. As a walker beat its decaying fist on the passenger window he turned the key in the ignition, put the car into drive and shot it forward, flattening a walker's skull completely underneath the tires. He brought the wagon to a lurching halt right beside Andrea's hideout and leaned across the seat to open the door for her as his wound stretched in protest. Andrea nearly dived into the seat next to him and he took off again before she had completely sat down.

"What the hell took you so long?" she complained, punching his arm irritably.

"Blood rush t'the head," Merle invented. "Didn't help that you were cheerleadin' up a storm for all the parkin' lot t'hear. I had t'pull the walkers away 'cuz you was sittin' there like a moron with the door wide open."

Andrea had no time to argue, for Merle had parked the car about ten feet from the nearest car connected to the jumble that Daryl and Dale had disappeared into. He slid out of his seat, bat back in his ready hands and began haphazardly searching for any sign of a familiar body. He half hoped that he wouldn't find one. It would be another arrow in his gut if he saw bloody remains, but the thought of them being completely consumed made him want to vomit. The air was rank with long dead bodies still piled inside some of the cars. He twisted between a neon-orange Slug Bug and a Hyundai Accent and stepped on someone's still moving hand.

It was the last marauder's, its owner twitching in pain underneath a walker's body which acted as a scent shield as he pressed one hand over an arrow wound through his side similar to Merle's. So Daryl had gotten him after all…

Merle kicked the corpse off of him and pointed his Hi-Power at the rather large space between the son of a bitch's eyes. He drove his heel down into that damned face four times, breaking the nose and the jaw and cutting open an eyelid so that through the slitted flesh the eye was blinking rapidly to clear itself of blood. With the bat he broke both of the man's kneecaps and then, biting through the agony of his wound, brought it full swing into the raider's stomach. If Merle hadn't at least ruptured the marauder's spleen, he had made the bastard shit himself. None of the hits were meant to kill; he wanted this man alive until the walkers found him.

"Die slowly, motherfucker," he said with venom clinging to his every word before he hacked up as much saliva as his parched throat allowed and spat dead center onto the maimed eye.

He had spent so much time lingering that the walkers from across the lot were dangerously close. Andrea was calling him back, but he knew that if the marauder had been standing here, Dale should only be a few feet away. He wound his way around a smashed car and came to the spot where he judged that Dale went down.

There was nothing there, only blood smears.

Merle felt hollow and empty. There were no signs of a struggle or attack, so where the hell was Dale? Where was Ari? And Daryl? Did the absence of innards littering the ground mean that Dale had gotten away? If so, when and how? It hurt Merle's head, throbbing against his brain like a giant sledgehammer as he tried so desperately to make sense of it all. No solution was forthcoming, however, and he wanted to just shoot his fucking brains out so that he wouldn't have to feel any more of this hurt and confusion and anger and—

"Merle, now!"

He wanted to go back to her, but Ari was still missing and he refused to leave without knowing. He _had_ to know.

"_Merle_!"

He hobbled back towards the station wagon, making sure the tread on the marauder in his pool of blood as he exited the maze. Only when he pulled his door shut, locked it, and reversed the car several feet out of the reach of the walkers did he notice that the maze had come alive. Daryl was beating his crossbow on the car hoods, whooping and swearing like Merle had never seen him do before, skirting around the circumference of the jumble. The walkers saw him moving and the car stationary and so they changed course, bumping into one another in their haste to get to their next meal. Daryl made a giant shooing motion with a giant wave of his hand, thundering in a voice he had never used before, "RUN!"

This made no sense to Merle. Run? He was in the damn car, he didn't need to _run_. But it wasn't him and Andrea who Daryl was yelling at.

"Look!" cried Andrea, pointing her finger in front of Merle's face. He followed the eye line and then he understood. The old man came limping out of the maze, his khaki pants soaked in blood from a gunshot wound through his right leg. The marauder had only succeeded in putting a bullet in his leg and that was why he had gone down. Dale had lost his hat, his salt and pepper whiskers were flecked with red, and he was shambling along pathetically as he tried to run toward the station wagon, but in his arms he was holding Ari. Merle pressed the pedal to the floor and nearly took Dale out in his haste to reach him. Andrea had clambered into the back seat and opened the door for him. Dale performed more of a back flop than a slide as he came to halt on the seat, Ari safely in the carrier. Andrea unbuckled her and with a dry sob held the baby to her chest, stroking her soft curls and kissing her cheek. Merle touched Ari's head with his knuckles and ran one finger down the side of her face.

"Are you bit?" asked Andrea, leaning over to address Dale who was wheezing and gasping for air.

Merle never heard his reply because Daryl's roar drowned it out. Daryl loosened his last arrow at a walker trying to sneak in behind him as he cut through the maze at a diagonal. His knife whipped out, nearly severing a head from a pair of hunched shoulders. Walkers stormed in, though some of them stopped several feet away and by the sound of an unseen inhuman scream, they had found the marauder. No sense of fulfilled vengeance claimed Merle. He had eyes only for his brother who fell as a walker grabbed him around the knees. There was a series of tortured screams followed only by silence.

Blood pounded in Merle's ears, deafening him to all else. He was not aware of putting the car in park or opening his door, but one moment he had been sitting in the driver's seat and the next he was halfway to the cars, coming to the belated rescue of the brother who was no longer there.

But there were hands to pull him back, to keep him from seeing what he knew had happened. Andrea pushed against his chest with both of her hands and Dale tugged at his arms, but he still tried to cut around them. A hand flew up and smacked him across the face. The sting was real enough to be felt, but nothing compared to what was happening at his hip or inside of him.

"He's gone, Merle-,"

"Daryl."

"He's _gone_!"

"DARYL!"

Screaming out his name would make him stand up, start running to them. Shouting could bring him back, it had to. His voice, so underused and abused when it came to Daryl, was the one thing he had now to save his brother, that infant boy peering curiously at Merle through scratched brown crib bars. But Merle's voice cracked and he lost his only defense. His body, weakened by Daryl's arrow could not hold its own against the insistent efforts of the other two. His mind fought back madly to deny what his heart was trying to prove to him. It just wasn't possible, wasn't happening, wasn't _fair_.

But since when had the world ever been fair to him? He couldn't even count the times on one hand. Life had given him a very distinctive _fuck you_.

"Daryl…" he said weakly, putting his fingers over the wound that had slid slightly free of the tourniquet. The wound was all he had left of Daryl. His spilt blood was his only reminder that Daryl had died on unsettled terms, still hating him for abandoning him when Daryl most needed him. Merle's punishment was Daryl's death.

Andrea had managed to get him back into the driver's seat and was urging him to drive onward, but Merle's hands shook on the wheel and as he finally tore his gaze away from the car maze, he saw tears on Andrea's face. She cupped the back of his neck and rested her forehead to his, running her fingers over his skin. She understood better than even he did.

Merle felt a hot liquid running out of his eyes, but didn't try to stop its natural flow. He let the tears plummet down into his lap and encased his hand in Andrea's, squeezing tightly because he knew that if he let go, he would lose her, only one half of anything he had left.

**And you thought you knew what was coming…**


	22. Chapter 22: November's End

Already it had been one whole week since the attack at the produce store, but instead of retreating into the shell he had worn before Daryl's argument had forced him to become part of the group, Merle spent nearly every waking moment with Ari: never letting her out of his sight, sleeping on the floor beside her crib, and always keeping at least one eye on her whenever he did his chores. Before the attack he had been so used to Daryl avoiding him that it seemed nothing had changed inside the house without him there. He performed the majority of the hard labor, but with his bike now gone and the station wagon running just fine, he had nothing to work on outside whenever he was feeling claustrophobic which was a common experience these days. He was the solitary hunter, the only one physically capable of doing anything really since Andrea was now wearing a sling and Dale was slinking around on crutches Merle had fashioned for him. Despite the old man's injuries, he had been able to fix each of them up in turn to the best of his ability but it had been Merle, who had, after all, been in the military who had had to sew up his own arrow wound and remove the bullet from Dale's leg. Both Merle and Andrea's faces were unforgivably beaten up, but Merle's was worse because he had broken his nose.

He had felt almost nothing since losing Daryl, but Ari had brought Andrea to uncontrollable tears when she ventured into Daryl's room, looking behind the door and in the closet for him. Merle had promptly escaped into the bathroom and splashed water in his face to mask what threatened to roll out of his eyes. After that he kept Daryl's door shut, hoping that the memory of him would slowly fade out of Ari's mind. There were no pictures of Daryl to show her when she grew up and the less she remembered about him, the easier it would be on Merle. Likewise, Andrea kept Jim's door shut, though she often went in there herself to sit on the bed and run her hands over the sheets almost longing for the feel or smell of him.

All Ari had sustained from the entire incident was a small scrape to her cheek when Dale fell after being shot. Dale had rolled onto his back at the last possible second and landed with her facing upward. Daryl then shot at the marauder and as the walkers began meandering around, he stuffed Dale and Ari inside one of the cars with some difficulty given Dale's bum leg which explained the blood smear Merle had seen.

Several times in the early hours of the morning Merle would come awake, sometimes slowly, other times sitting up bolt right and made the seemingly endless walk to Daryl's room. He would put his hand on the doorknob but never opened the door because there was nothing inside that could stir up a memory of his brother. Daryl had only existed in that room, never lived in it. After a quick glance at Jim's closed door, Merle would return to the floor beside Ari's crib and lay back down. A few times she would wake up and stare at him in the darkness, watching from above as he brought his knees to his chest and tried to find sleep once again. He always woke up with a blanket draped over him, courtesy of Andrea who respected his feelings and always had something completely unrelated to Daryl or Jim to say to spare him any unnecessary pain.

Merle and Andrea had gone back to the site of the attack four days after to retrieve Jim's body, but Merle had no intention of bringing Daryl's back because he suspected that there was nothing left to take home with them. The best he could hope for was his crossbow and maybe the arrow he had shot the marauder with. They returned to the site only to find it deserted of all walkers. Jim's graying face was sunken in, his blood had dried, and he was wasting away, but the maggots had let him be as had the walkers and that was the smallest saving grace ever. With some difficulty, Andrea managed to get a grip on his legs and Merle put his hands underneath Jim's armpits to place him in the back of the wagon where Andrea covered him with a baby blue bed sheet, the same one Jim had last slept in.

Andrea waited behind at the wagon as Merle walked over to the cars and braved the maze. He found some telltale remains of the marauder like a gnawed finger, a small line of entrails, and a hell of a lot of blood, but felt nothing inside as he stepped around the ripe-smelling mess. He could not tell where Daryl had gone down because there was blood everywhere but despite that, there was absolutely no hint as to what remained of his little brother. Maybe it was leftovers from the marauder that had still been clinging to a walker that made up the mess on the ground, but there was no way of telling and almost—almost—with a feeling of relief he headed back to the station wagon.

Now as he sat three days later across from Jim's grave beside the house he wondered if he should have made more thorough of a search for something of Daryl's. He pulled up dead grass between his fingers and scattered it over the fresh mound of earth covering Jim. There was a roughly hewn gravestone with his name on it. Merle couldn't think of anything else to carve and admittedly had known so little about the man that there was nothing to add. He didn't even know Jim's last name or how old he was. Damn it, he had gone to such lengths to save him from committing suicide so why the hell hadn't he tried to get to know the man better?

Andrea came out to put a coat on him from the master bedroom closet and knelt beside him, wrapping her good arm around his shoulders and nestling her head in the crook of his neck. He didn't know how to respond, not that he needed to. He knew where the two of them stood and given time, they would be each other's healing. They were equals in their losses and Merle finally understood what she had meant about hanging onto the few people left in the world. She pressed her lips to his temple and left him where he sat, lost in the jumble of thoughts interweaving inside of his head.

He stayed there beside the grave for another hour or two and when he finally stood up, brushing off his pants, the ending November wind sent a chilling draft through his sleeves. He pulled the coat tighter around him and went back inside, shutting the door quietly behind him. Ari was there waiting for him with arms stretched wide to be lifted. Careful so as to not upset his healing wound, he bent over and scooped her up in one arm, carrying her into the kitchen where Andrea was filling a pot with Merle's latest catch and some canned vegetables from another store nearly thirty miles out where they had stocked up on everything from gas to toilet paper. Dale sat on a stool at the island sketching on a pad of paper. Merle handed Ari over to him and Dale let her take his pen and a spare piece of paper so that she could color.

Then something hard and loud hit the front door.

Andrea turned, eyes wide in fear. Merle motioned for them to remain where they were and went to the closet where his recovered rifle was sitting. He checked it for rounds and pressed his eye to the peephole, but saw nothing. Very slowly he cracked the door open, rifle pointed outward. Bit by bit he opened the door until it stood against the doorstop on the wall behind. Looking out he gazed left, right, center, and back but saw absolutely nothing. There wasn't even anything like a rock on the porch. Perhaps the wind had just hit the door with so much force that it made a sound.

"Merle…"

Andrea's voice was almost a whisper, though it sounded like a cross between one of terror and awe. Glancing back at her he saw that her eyes were fixed on something beside him. He had been so intent on looking for the unseen culprit that he had completely bypassed the door up to this point.

But there was something there. It was a long shaft, chestnut brown and spotted with dried flecks of red. At the end protruding from the door were three identical lines of gray striped feathers and Merle ran his fingers along it, not sure if it was real or not as the arrow quivered with the wind.

**Well then…**

**This is where the story ends, my friends. You might have questions, so feel free to review or PM me with them and I shall do my best to answer them. This is by far my favorite of the WD stories I have written, but given that the new season with our beloved Dixon brothers returns in the fall, I might just write another one, possibly another Daryl fic. I don't want to say too much about the ending here because I like to leave the reader thinking, but again, I will try to answer your questions if you contact me. I know I don't have to ask you to review, but if you would recommend this story to anyone who you think might want to read it, I would be eternally grateful. Thank you all so much for all of your feedback, support, and enthusiasm which has helped fuel the story. I hope that at the very least it kept you engaged until the end just to know what happened to the characters we know, love, and miss (Dale and Jim.) Thanks again and now I leave you with this quote that I waited through four minutes of suspenseful trailer clips to hear and see.**

** "Now, how's about a big hug for your old pal Merle, huh?"**


End file.
